THE EFFECT OF AIR POLLUTION ON CARDIO RESPIRATORY PERFORMANCEOF ACTIVE INDIVIDUALS

Background: although much has bee n discussed regarding th e improvement of quality oflife with regular physical exerc ise, we need studies on th e cardia respiratory response evaluatedon th e basis of 02 uptake, transport, and utilizat ion in areas with high concentrations of pollutantsin th e atmosphere. the pur pose of thi s study was to determine th e effect of air pollution onrespiratory and car diac performance of active individuals in th e environments with polluted airand non-polluted air .methods: twenty healthy non-smo ker athlete undergraduate male students (mean ± sd: age21.70 ± 2.10 yr, height 175.80 ± 6.78 em, weight 6s.s8 ± 4.23 kg and bmi 24-44 ± 2.32) volunteeredto participat e in the study. firs t, two environments including polluted an d non-pollut edwere dete rmined on the basis of th e environmenta l protection agency. then, the subj ects wereperformed on a field cooper test. the test s consisted of two phases: phase a, in non-polluted airarea and phase b, in polluted air area, with a 7-day interval betwee n phases. finally, resp irat oryvolumes and capacities were measured.results: the results of analysis by paired t-test showed that th ere were significant decreasesin all of th e respiratory parameters (erv, ic, fvc, fevl, mvv, fev2s-7s, fev1/fvc) , in pollutedair compared with non-polluted air (p < o.os).the heart rat e meas ur es in two group showed that the mean of heart rate in polluted area was(89 ± 4) more than nonpolluted environment (83 ± s) and this was significant at p=0.028.conclusion: therefore, the acute exposure to polluted air may cause a significant reductionin th e respiratory and cardiac performance of active individuals.