Acute exposure to traffic-related air pollution alters antioxidant status in healthy adults

Background: Exposure to traffic-related air pollution is associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular and respiratory disease. Evidence suggests that inhaled pollutants precipitate these effects via multiple pathways involving oxidative stress. Objective: Postulating that a decrease in circulating antioxidant levels reflect an oxidative response, we investigated the effect of inhaled diesel exhaust (DE) on the ratio of reduced to oxidized glutathione (GSH/GSSG) in healthy adults, and whether pre-exposure antioxidant supplementation blunted this response. We also examined exposure-related changes in antioxidant/stress response leukocyte gene expression (GCLc, HMOX-1, IL-6, TGF beta) and plasma IL-6 levels. Methods: Nineteen nonsmoking adults participated in a double-blind, randomized, four-way crossover study. Each subject completed 120-min exposures to filtered air and DE (200 mu g/m(3)), with and without antioxidant pretreatment. Antioxidant comprised 1000 mg ascorbate for 7 days and 1200 mg N-acetylcysteine 1 day prior to exposure, with 1000 mg and 600 mg, respectively, administered 2 h prior to exposure. Whole blood glutathione was measured pre- and post-exposure; plasma IL-6 and mRNA expression were quantified pre, during and post exposure. Results: Diesel exhaust exposure was associated with significantly decreased GSH/GSSG (p = 0.001) and a 4-fold increase in IL-6 mRNA (p = 0.01) post exposure. Antioxidant pretreatment did not significantly mediate the effect of DE exposure on GSH/GSSG, though appeared to decrease the effect of exposure on IL-6 mRNA expression. Conclusions: Acute DE inhalation induced detectable oxidative effects in healthy adults, which were not significantly attenuated by the selected antioxidant pre-treatment. This finding supports the premise that oxidative stress is one mechanism underlying the adverse effects of traffic-related air pollution.