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Particle exposure and the historical loss of Native American lives to infections
Citation:
Ghio, Andy. Particle exposure and the historical loss of Native American lives to infections. AMERICAN JOURNAL OF RESPIRATORY AND CRITICAL CARE MEDICINE. American Thoracic Society, New York, NY, 195(12):1673, (2017).
Impact/Purpose:
This is a letter to the editor to address the impact of particle exposure on indigenous peoples mortality rate.
Description:
This is a letter to the editor-excerpt: An alternative reason for the devastating loss of Native American lives to infectious diseases introduced through interactions with Europeans could include an impact of exposure to particulate matter (PM) associated with the preparation of food and heating. In Europe, the chimney had developed by approximately 1600 as an architectural adaptation commonly employed in homes to diminish exposure of inhabitants to particles released during fuel combustion (3). Residences built in the Americas by Europeans had chimneys for the control of generated smoke. Use of either a chimney or an equivalent device to reduce indoor exposure to combustion products was uncommon in the domiciles of Native Americans (4). Often in these dwellings, fire pits were built in the ground in the center and there was either no exit or simply a hole in the peak (e.g. a smoke flap or smoke hole) for generated smoke to escape. Accordingly, Native American homes (e.g. tipis, wigwams, and long houses) were associated with exposures to high levels of smoke emitted from the burning of a biomass (e.g. wood). Extrapolating from comparable situations in which burning of biomass is used for preparation of food and heating, particle exposure would have been tens of thousands of micrograms per cubic meter in Native American domeciles and the lower respiratory tract of inhabitants was likely exposed from birth to a mass of PM equivalent to that of a cigarette smoker. Inhalation of this PM with retention in the lung disrupts iron homeostasis by complexing host cell metal (5). Total concentrations of iron are increased not only in the respiratory tract but systemically. Such elevations in iron increase the risk for numerous infections since microbials have capacities to mobilize and use the metal for their own purposes including replication (e.g. siderophores) (6). Augmentation of the total iron following particle exposure explains observations of increased pulmonary and extra-pulmonary infections observed in the contemporary world among those burning biomass, exposed to environmental tobacco smoke, and smoking cigarettes (7,8). Severity of the infection and associated mortality are both greater with particle exposure (7, 9). The remarkable loss of aboriginal populations in the Americas which occurred through their interactions with Europeans may reflect, in part, a predisposition to infections resulting from their exposure to elevated PM concentrations, its immediate impact on iron homeostasis, and contingent effects on infections. This mechanism is comparable to the role of iron accumulation following particle exposure in elevating rates of infection following all particle exposures including cigarette smoking, the burning of biomass, environmental tobacco smoke, desert dust storms, and air pollution (10).
