Dr. Timothy Denton, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center CBS News Correspondent Jerry Bowen talks to one of the subjects of a smog study. New scientific research has found that even moderate smog may induce sudden death by changing the heart rhythms of people with existing cardiac problems. The finding suggests that air pollution poses even a greater public safety threat to the heart than to the lungs.
Heart disease is the top killer in the United States, responsible for about half of all deaths.
The cause of the deaths is a surprise. It's not just the chemicals. The new evidence, culled from more than a dozen studies on humans and animals, shows that tiny pieces of soot, called particulates, may alter the heart rate in some people. It's believed that when particulates reach the lungs of very ill heart patients, the nervous system responds by triggering an irregular, potentially fatal heart beat. Its estimated the number of heart disease deaths due to air pollution range from a low of 1,000 to as many as 10,000 each year nationally.