Use of candles and risk of cardiovascular and respiratory events in a Danish cohort study

Steffen Loft, Zorana J. Andersen, Jeanette Therming Jorgensen, Amalie Darling Kristiansen, Julie Kamstrup Dam, Johannah Cramer, Rudi G. J. Westendorp, Rikke Lund, Youn-Hee Lim*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articleResearchpeer-review

5 Citations (Scopus)
31 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Burning candles at home emit small particles and gases that pollute indoor air. Exposure to fine particles in outdoor air has been convincingly linked to cardiovascular and respiratory events, while the associations with fine and ultrafine particles from candle burning remain unexplored. We examined the association between the use of candles and incident cardiovascular and respiratory events. We collected data on 6757 participants of the Copenhagen Aging and Midlife Biobank cohort recruited in 2009 and followed them up for the first hospital contact for incident cardiovascular and respiratory events until 2018. We investigated an association between the self-reported frequency of candle use in wintertime and cardiovascular and respiratory events, using Cox regression models adjusting for potential confounders. During follow-up, 1462 and 834 were admitted for cardiovascular and respiratory events, respectively. We found null associations between candle use and a hospital contact due to cardiovascular and respiratory events, with hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) of 0.97 (95% CI: 0.84, 1.11) and 0.98 (95% CI: 0.81, 1.18), respectively, among those using candles >4 times/week compared with

Original languageEnglish
Article number13086
JournalIndoor Air
Volume32
Issue number8
Number of pages10
ISSN0905-6947
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2022

Keywords

  • candle
  • cardiovascular disease
  • cohort
  • environmental exposure
  • indoor air pollution
  • respiratory disease
  • AIR-POLLUTION
  • ULTRAFINE PARTICLES
  • INDOOR EXPOSURE
  • TERM EXPOSURE
  • LUNG-FUNCTION
  • FINE
  • EMISSION
  • POSITION
  • DISEASES
  • PROFILE

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