Background
pneumonia, premature deaths, tuberculosis, airway infections, premature death, asthma, COPD
PNEUMONIA, DISEASE, MINOR, TUBERCULOSIS, CHRONIC OBSTRUCTIVE PULMONARY DISEASE, COPD, ASTHMA
Air pollution is a major global environmental cause of disease and premature death, contributing to over 6 million premature deaths annually, when taking both ambient and household air pollution into account [During biomass combustion in residential woodstoves and fireplaces, a wide range of gaseous and particulate components are formed and emitted with the flue gases, as cleaning devices are rarely installed or available. Regarding health effects, most attention has been given to exposure to PM, both in ambient and indoor environments [In epidemiological studies, indoor exposure to biomass smoke has been associated with the development and worsening of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), asthma and airway infections, including pneumonia and tuberculosis [Controlled human exposure studies give a unique opportunity to directly examine specific exposure responses to well-characterized air pollutants, however only a limited number of controlled human exposure studies addressing the health effects of wood smoke have been reported. So far the findings have been inconsistent with no, or only minor pro-inflammatory airway or systemic responses [In a previous exposure study with wood smoke exposure from incomplete combustion in a wood stove in healthy subjects, we found an unexpected loss of macrophages, lymphocytes and neutrophils in BW at 24 h [