Indoor carbonyls could pose risk to heart health

Ozone ranks high on the list of hazardous indoor air pollutants. But the highly reactive molecule not only inflames lungs, it also transforms oils—like those humans produce in their skin or those used in cooking—that might be found coating indoor surfaces into volatile carbonyls. The health impact of these airborne pollutants is not well understood. Now, researchers have determined how high indoor carbonyl concentrations impact various red blood cell indices (ACS ES&T Air 2025, DOI: 10.1021/acsestair.5c00369).The research was part of a larger effort to understand how poor air quality might affect young people by coupling air quality measurements with health data from participants, says Yingjun Liu, an associate professor at Peking University. When her colleagues, Jicheng Gong and Tong Zhu, began this interdisciplinary research at Xizang University in Lhasa, they invited Liu to collect and analyze indoor air samples.The university, located in the Tibetan plateau, is a unique place to perform such a health study, Liu says. Fine particulate matter (PM2.5) is a well-known health hazard, but “Lhasa is one of the cleanest cities [in China] in terms of outdoor air quality, especially PM2.5,” she says. However, residents of the city often experience high outdoor ozone levels due to the altitude. This duality essentially allowed the researchers to control the confounding health factor of outdoor PM2.5 and focus on the health impacts of ozone products indoors, Liu says. Just over 100 university students participated in two field campaigns, each spanning about a month. In that time, the researchers asked each