Great. Breathing Air in Beijing Bad for Your Heart Also?

As a quick follow-up to last week’s blog post about how breathing the air in Beijing might be bad for your health, I wanted to point readers to the Bloomberg story this week that the air quality in Beijing might also be creating cardiac problems as well as the aforementioned respiratory issues most people immediately experience after spending much time in the city.  It gives new meaning to the Beijing Embassy’s Twitter feed when it ominously notes the pollution levels are “very unhealthy” or “hazardous.”

The article points to a couple of quantitative observations to support its assertion: first, “five people admitted for heart attacks from December 4 to 6, compared with one or two a week typically” and second, a quote from Ding Rongjing the Peking University People’s Hospital head of cardiology who said that “On days of extreme pollution, heart and stroke cases … can increase as much as 40 percent.”  At last count the hospital had 1,448 beds.  I would be curious what readers here make of the good doctor’s observation that they saw a five-fold increase in heart attack complaints during the period in question.  The deviation from norm is obviously material, but is the actual number in relation to the size of the hospital that unusual?

Regardless, the science behind the pollution in Beijing and its connection to cardiac health is fairly certain.  As the article writes, “Microscopic air particles 30 times smaller than the width of a human hair penetrate deep in the lungs, where they can pass into the bloodstream … the contaminants increase the risk of artery-blocking clots that can starve the heart, brain and other organs of oxygen.”  Hmm.  I don’t know about you, but seeing Beijing’s pollution problem as both a potential respiratory and cardiac problem is disconcerting.

Anecdotally, this coincides with my own experience while in Beijing.  I have some underlying cardiac challenges and noted during my last trip in particular – when the pollution was pretty bad – that I felt not only my respiratory function was diminished (I am a runner and would not think about running outside in Beijing given the pollution problems, although I know some ex-pats who try), but also that my blood pressure was appreciably higher.  The latter I noted in particular when I got to Wenzhou where the pollution was so bad during my November trip that I literally could not see twenty feet out of my hotel window.  It is troubling to read the Bloomberg article and recognize that simply being in Beijing on business is a risk factor that I now need to be thinking about when I plan my travel.

Also worth nothing are two pieces of research the Bloomberg article highlights.  The first is a 2009 study by Peking University School of Health which found that “Each 10-microgram increase above WHO guidelines for PM2.5 boosts emergency room visits for cardiovascular ailments by as much as 7 percent.”  The second is a 12-year study of 12,584 residents of Shenyang that found, “After adjusting for smoking and other known risk factors … levels of PM10 and the air pollutant nitrogen oxide ‘were significantly associated’ with death from cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases.”

I would be curious to hear from readers of the blog as to how they view these risks.  Do they make you think twice about going to Beijing?  Would you consider an ex-pat assignment in Beijing off the table because of these problems?  How would you manage the risk if you found the perfect opportunity in Beijing?  Does it matter if you are making this decision only for yourself versus for your family, and any children you might have?  Any best practices for how you handle living and working in Beijing?