Combined exposure to heavy metals in PM and pediatric asthma.

BACKGROUND

Asthma is the most common chronic allergic disease in children; it affects more than 300 million people worldwide. Information on the association between exposure to ambient heavy metals and incidence of pediatric asthma is limited.

OBJECTIVE

We sought to evaluate the effects of heavy metals during pregnancy and infancy periods with asthma and identify a sensitive time window, clarifying the effect of ambient heavy metals on lung development.

METHODS

A total of 171,281 children, who were born from 2004 to 2011 in Taichung City, were followed until 2014. Concentrations of ambient heavy metals such as arsenic (As), cadmium (Cd), mercury (Hg), and lead (Pb) were obtained from the Weather Research and Forecasting/Chem model, considering the top 75 emission sources in Taiwan. The distributed lag nonlinear model was used to investigate the relationship between combined exposure to heavy metals in 2.5 μm particulate matter and asthma in pregnant women and 1-year-old infants.

RESULTS

We identified 31,277 new asthma cases from the birth cohort. After adjustment for socioeconomic status, maternal age, maternal atopy, maternal anemia, and maternal kidney disease, distributed lag nonlinear model results revealed positive associations of asthma with exposure to Pb during gestational weeks 1 to 14 and 21 to 40, and 1 to 3 weeks after birth. Regarding the sensitivity analyses, coexposure to Pb and As, coexposure to Pb and Cd, and coexposure to Pb and Hg were positively associated with asthma onset as well.

CONCLUSIONS

Our study suggested that combined exposure to Pb with As, Cd, and Hg during early and late gestational weeks was associated with the incidence of pediatric asthma.