Language

English

Publication Date

9-1-2025

Journal

Cardiovascular Toxicology

DOI

10.1007/s12012-025-10013-7

PMID

40616710

PMCID

PMC12310855

PubMedCentral® Posted Date

7-5-2025

PubMedCentral® Full Text Version

Post-print

Abstract

Many 1990-1991 Gulf War Veterans (GWVs) were exposed to toxicants and environmental hazards during deployment, including oil well fire smoke, chemical/biological agents, pyridostigmine bromide (PB) pills, and pesticides. Multiple constituents of smoke are associated with increased risk for atherosclerotic cardiovascular diseases (ASCVD), and other toxic exposures have been associated with autonomic and lipid dysfunction. We used data from the Gulf War Era Cohort and Biorepository Study of veterans deployed to Gulf War in 1990-1991 (n = 942). We evaluated the association of deployment exposures (no, yes (1-6 days), (7-30 days), (31 + days), and not sure) with clinical risk factors (hypertension, diabetes, high cholesterol) and ASCVD using multivariable logistic regression. We adjusted for all clinical risk factors in the models to test the association of military exposures and ASCVD. We found that 7-30 days exposure to oil well fire smoke (OR: 2.95, CI: 1.40, 6.19), PB pills (OR: 2.37, CI: 1.06, 5.32), and chemical/biological agents (OR: 3.60, CI: 1.04, 12.51) were associated with ASCVD. Exposure to chemical/biological agents for 7-30 days was also associated with hypertension (OR: 4.18, CI: 1.48, 11.86) and for 31 + days was associated with ASCVD (OR: 4.24, CI:1.20, 14.94). The associations between oil well fire smoke and chemical/biological agents with ASCVD remained significant in models adjusting for clinical risk factors. For GWVs, exposure to oil well fire smoke, chemical/biological agents, and PB pills were associated with ASCVD. These exposures may represent population-specific risk enhancers for ASCVD and may be considered in individualized clinical risk assessment.

Keywords

Humans, Male, Veterans, Middle Aged, Female, Atherosclerosis, Gulf War, Adult, Risk Factors, United States, Occupational Exposure, Risk Assessment, Smoke, Time Factors, Veterans Health, Gulf war veterans, Military exposures, Hypertension, Diabetes, High cholesterol, ASCVD

Published Open-Access

yes

Download

Share

COinS
 
 

To view the content in your browser, please download Adobe Reader or, alternately,
you may Download the file to your hard drive.

NOTE: The latest versions of Adobe Reader do not support viewing PDF files within Firefox on Mac OS and if you are using a modern (Intel) Mac, there is no official plugin for viewing PDF files within the browser window.