Negative Effects of Nitrogen
Dioxide May be due to Testosterone
Copyright
2004, James Michael Howard,
Nitrogen dioxide is a
“pollutant” that is created by burning fuels. The main sources are power plants and
motor vehicles. It is known to
cause problems for people including increased susceptibility to respiratory
infections, snoring, lung problems, etc.
I suggest nitrogen dioxide may cause its problems because nitrogen
dioxide may increase testosterone in humans as it does in rats (below). Increased testosterone may be involved
in a number of diseases and mortality.
In rats, nitrogen dioxide
increases testosterone (Environ Health Perspect 2001; 109: 111-9 and ibid 1999;
107: 539-44).
This is from the Journal of the American Medical Association:
Ozone and Short-term Mortality in 95
Michelle L. Bell, PhD;
Aidan McDermott, PhD; Scott L. Zeger, PhD; Jonathan M. Samet, MD; Francesca
Dominici, PhD
JAMA. 2004;292:2372-2378.
Context Ozone has been associated
with various adverse health effects, including increased rates of
hospital admissions and exacerbation of respiratory illnesses.
Although numerous time-series studies have estimated associations
between day-to-day variation in ozone levels and mortality counts,
results have been inconclusive.
Objective To investigate whether
short-term (daily and weekly) exposure to ambient ozone is
associated with mortality in the
Design and
Setting Using analytical methods and databases developed for
the National Morbidity, Mortality, and Air Pollution Study, we
estimated a national average relative rate of mortality associated
with short-term exposure to ambient ozone for 95 large US urban
communities from 1987-2000. We used distributed-lag models for
estimating community-specific relative rates of mortality adjusted
for time-varying confounders (particulate matter, weather, seasonality,
and long-term trends) and hierarchical models for combining relative
rates across communities to estimate a national average relative
rate, taking into account spatial heterogeneity.
Main Outcome Measure Daily counts of total
non–injury-related mortality and cardiovascular and
respiratory mortality in 95 large US communities during a 14-year period.
Results A 10-ppb increase in
the previous week’s ozone was associated with a 0.52% increase
in daily mortality (95% posterior interval [PI], 0.27%-0.77%) and a
0.64% increase in cardiovascular and respiratory mortality (95% PI,
0.31%-0.98%). Effect estimates for aggregate ozone during the
previous week were larger than for models considering only a single
day’s exposure. Results were robust to adjustment for
particulate matter, weather, seasonality, and long-term trends.
Conclusions These results indicate a
statistically significant association between short-term changes in
ozone and mortality on average for 95 large