Association between PM2.5 components and electrocardiogram abnormalities among elderly individuals: a longitudinal study in Guangzhou, China
Chaoling Zhang, Qin Zhou, Jiamin Chen, Zhengmin Min Qian, Maya Kavuri, Tom Burroughs, Zhonghua Ai, Shengtao Wei, Weiquan Lin, Zhoubin Zhang, Hui Liu, Hualiang Lin · 2026
Read Association between PM2.5 components and electrocardiogram abnormalities among elderly individuals: a longitudinal study in Guangzhou, China by Chaoling Zhang, Qin Zhou, Jiamin Chen, Zhengmin Min Qian, Maya Kavuri, Tom Burroughs, Zhonghua Ai, Shengtao Wei, Weiquan Lin, Zhoubin Zhang, Hui Liu, Hualiang Lin (2026) in the Tower of Babel, a free online library of public-domain works preserved in clean, searchable text. No sign-up. The full text is served as a plain-text file at a predictable URL, where text is present: https://antarctic-labs.com/tower-of-babel/pmc-13474518.txt.
Description
Zhang and co-authors mined health records of 215,073 Guangzhou elders, encompassing 691,990 electrocardiograms from 2018 to 2022, to test whether the chemical recipe of fine air pollution matters for heart rhythm. Their 2026 longitudinal study estimated each participant's annual exposure to PM2.5 particles and five ingredients: sulfate, nitrate, organic matter, ammonium, and black carbon.
Every component raised the odds of an abnormal ECG reading. Per interquartile-range increase, overall PM2.5 carried an odds ratio of 1.029 on the standard scale, while ammonium was the most potent ingredient at 1.070, followed by nitrate at 1.058 with the remaining components close behind. Because a single ingredient's effect is small but exposure is universal and lifelong, the authors argue pollution rules should target the sources of the most hazardous components, not just total particle mass.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Chaoling Zhang, Qin Zhou, Jiamin Chen, Zhengmin Min Qian, Maya Kavuri, Tom Burroughs, Zhonghua Ai, Shengtao Wei, Weiquan Lin, Zhoubin Zhang, Hui Liu, Hualiang Lin |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 31 KB |
| VERSION | 1.0 |
| LICENSE | CC BY 4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |