Does use of solid fuel for heating increase hypertension risk?

A statistically insignificant association exists between household solid fuel use for heating and hypertension prevalence or blood pressure (BP), according to a study.

The authors recruited 44,007 individuals aged 35–70 years with complete information on household solid fuel use for cooking and heating from 279 urban and rural communities of 12 centres during 2005–2009. Solid fuel included charcoal, coal, wood, agriculture crop, animal dung, or shrub. Annual concentration of ambient atmospheric particulate matter with a diameter <2.5 μm for all communities was then obtained.

The authors used generalized linear mixed models with community as the random effect to estimate the association with hypertension prevalence or BP after considering ambient atmospheric particulate matter with a diameter <2.5 μm and a comprehensive set of potential confounding factors at the individual and household level.

Of the participants, 61.2 percent used household solid fuel for cooking and 47.6 percent for heating. Solid fuel use for heating did not significantly correlate with an increase in hypertension prevalence (adjusted odds ratio, 1.08, 95 percent confidence interval [CI], 0.98–1.20) or elevated systolic BP (0.62 mm Hg, 95 percent CI, –0.24 to 1.48). Solid fuel for cooking was not associated with hypertension or BP.

Furthermore, no additional risk was seen among participants who had both exposures to solid fuel for heating and cooking relative to those used for heating only.

“As this cross-sectional study has its inherent limitation on causality, findings from this study would have to be confirmed by prospective cohort studies,” the authors said.