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• Posted June 9, 2026

Air Pollution Might Contribute To Clogged Arteries, Heart Disease Risk

Long-term exposure to air pollution might contribute to clogged arteries and heart disease, a new study says.

People with higher levels of exposure to smog had an elevated risk of calcium deposits and plaques in their arteries, researchers reported today in the journal Radiology.

In particular, women had an 81% increased risk of heart disease associated with long-term exposure to particle pollution, researchers found.

“Even at exposure levels below current Canadian air quality standards, long-term air pollution was independently associated with more advanced coronary artery disease — suggesting current regulations may not be fully protective and that air pollution belongs alongside blood pressure, cholesterol and smoking as a modifiable cardiovascular risk factor,” senior researcher Dr. Kate Hanneman said in a news release. She’s an associate professor of medical imaging at the University of Toronto in Canada.

Previous studies had already linked air pollution to increased hospital visits for heart disease and heart failure, researchers said in background notes.

For the new study, researchers analyzed heart CT scans for more than 11,000 adults taken between 2012 and 2023 at three major hospitals in Toronto.

Researchers used the patients’ postal codes to compare their average exposure to air pollution to the results of their heart scans, which looked for deposits and plaques that contribute to hardened and narrowed arteries.

For each increase in long-term exposure to particle pollution, there was an 11% increase in calcium build-up in the coronary arteries; 13% greater odds of more plaque; and 23% greater odds of heart disease, researchers found.

Exposure to nitrogen dioxide showed similar trends, though with smaller effects for increased exposure, results showed.

These results added up to an increased risk in heart disease among women, but there were no associations found among men, researchers said.

“This is one of the largest studies to use cardiac CT to show that air pollution is linked to more advanced coronary artery disease — going beyond calcium scoring to include total plaque burden and obstructive disease — in a population with moderate exposure levels typical of high-income countries,” Hanneman said.

Air pollution likely contributes to clogged arteries by promoting inflammation, damaging blood vessel function, and activating pathways that contribute to blood clotting, researchers said.

Hanneman pointed out that the median 10-year exposure to particle pollution among these patients was well below the current standards for air quality in Canada. (Median means half had higher exposure, half lower.)

“The fact that we can detect a measurable signal in coronary atherosclerosis at these levels suggests there may be no clear, safe threshold for cardiovascular harm from air pollution, and that even populations in countries with relatively clean air face meaningful cardiovascular risk from environmental exposure,” Hanneman said.

More information

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has more on air pollution and heart disease.

SOURCE: Radiological Society of North America, news release, June 9, 2026