Air pollution might play a role in people's risk for developing autoimmune diseases like lupus and rheumatoid arthritis, a new study says.
People exposed to particle air pollution had higher levels of anti-nuclear antibodies, a characteristic marker of autoimmune rheumatic diseases, researchers recently reported in the journal Rheumatology.
"These results point us in a new direction for understanding how air pollution might trigger immune system changes that are associated with autoimmune disease," senior researcher Dr. Sasha Bernatsky, a professor of medicine at McGill University in Canada, said in a news release.
For the study, researchers collected blood samples from more than 3,500 people living in Canada's Ontario region, looking at their levels of anti-nuclear antibodies.
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