Long-term residential exposure to locally emitted black carbon (BC) from traffic exhaust increases the risk of stroke even in low-pollution environments, according to a study by researchers at Karolinska Institutet and other universities in Sweden. The open-access study, published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives , suggests that it is mainly black carbon from traffic exhaust that increases the risk for stroke, and not particulate matter from other sources. Researchers at Karolinska Institutet, University of Gothenburg, Umeå University, the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute and SLB analysis-Environmental unit in Stockholm found few consistent associations were observed between different particulate components and ischemic heart disease (IHD) or stroke. However, long-term residential exposure to locally emitted BC from traffic exhaust was associated with stroke incidence. We see that these emissions have consequences even in low-pollution environments like Swedish cities. The researchers followed almost 115,000 middle-aged healthy individuals living in Gothenburg, Stockholm […]