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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Public Health
Sec. Environmental health and Exposome
Volume 12 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2024.1401006
This article is part of the Research Topic Identifying the Key Pathogenic Factors of Neurological Disorders by Integrating Multi-omics Data - Volume II View all 4 articles

Metabolic Profiles Associated with Exposure to Ambient Particulate Air Pollution: Findings from the Betula Cohort

Provisionally accepted
Wasif Raza Wasif Raza 1Katja M. Kanninen Katja M. Kanninen 2Pasi Jalava Pasi Jalava 2Xiao-Wen Zeng Xiao-Wen Zeng 3Tosca de Crom Tosca de Crom 4Mohammad Arfan Ikram Mohammad Arfan Ikram 4Anna Oudin Anna Oudin 1,5*
  • 1 Umeå University, Umeå, Västerbotten, Sweden
  • 2 University of Eastern Finland, Kuopio, Northern Savonia, Finland
  • 3 National Sun Yat-sen University, Kaohsiung, Kaohsiung County, Taiwan
  • 4 Erasmus Medical Center, Rotterdam, Netherlands
  • 5 Lund University, Lund, Skane County, Sweden

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Air pollution is a significant contributor to morbidity and mortality globally and has been linked to an increased risk of dementia. Previous studies within the Betula cohort in Northern Sweden have demonstrated associations between air pollution and dementia, as well as distinctive metabolomic profiles in dementia patients compared to controls. This study aimed to investigate whether air pollution is associated with quantitative changes in metabolite levels within this cohort, and whether future dementia status would modify this association. Both short-term and long-term exposure to air pollution were evaluated using high spatial resolution models and measured data. Air pollution from vehicle exhaust and woodsmoke were analysed separately. Metabolomic profiling was conducted on 321 participants, analyzing 58 serum samples from dementia patients and a control group matched for age, sex, and education level using nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy. While no statistically significant associations were found between any metabolites and any measures of short-term or long-term exposure to air pollution, there were trends potentially suggesting associations between both long-term and short-term exposure to air pollution with lactate and glucose metabolites. Notably, these associations were observed despite the lack of correlation between long-term and short-term air pollution exposure in this cohort. There were furthermore tendencies for associations between air pollution from wood-smoke to be more pronounced in participants that would later develop dementia, which may suggest an effect depending on urban/rural factors. While these findings provide some new insights into the link between air pollution and metabolic markers in a low-exposure setting, addressing existing limitations is crucial to improve the robustness and applicability of future research in this area.

    Keywords: Air Pollution, environmental epidemiology, Metabolomics, Dementia, Cognitive Disorders

    Received: 14 Mar 2024; Accepted: 01 Jul 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Raza, Kanninen, Jalava, Zeng, de Crom, Ikram and Oudin. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Anna Oudin, Umeå University, Umeå, 901 87, Västerbotten, Sweden

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.