{"id":139968,"date":"2026-11-12T00:10:54","date_gmt":"2026-11-12T05:10:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cardiologynownews.org\/?p=139968"},"modified":"2026-11-12T00:10:54","modified_gmt":"2026-11-12T05:10:54","slug":"cleaner-air-trial-bedroom-hepa-filtration-lowered-glycemic-variability-in-adults-with-prediabetes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cardiologynownews.org\/?p=139968","title":{"rendered":"Cleaner Air Trial: Bedroom HEPA Filtration Lowered Glycemic Variability in Adults with Prediabetes"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The Cleaner Air for Lower Cardiometabolic Risk trial tested whether 4 weeks of HEPA air filtration in the bedroom could improve glucose control in adults with prediabetes.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Compared with sham devices, filtration lowered indoor fine particulate matter by 36% and glycemic variability on continuous glucose monitoring by 8%.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Glucose responses after breakfast also fell, with a 17% lower incremental area under the curve, an effect the investigators compared to cutting about 2 teaspoons of sugar from the meal.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Air pollution ranks second only to high blood pressure as a risk factor for early death worldwide, and it is the third-largest global risk factor for type 2 diabetes. Observational studies have linked periods of higher pollution exposure to higher fasting glucose and HbA1c, even in people without diabetes. Whether bedroom HEPA filtration improves glycemic control in adults with prediabetes remained uncertain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>At the 2026 American Heart Association Scientific Sessions, <a href=\"https:\/\/nyulangone.org\/doctors\/1932557527\/sharine-l-wittkopp\">Dr. Sharine Wittkopp<\/a> of NYU Grossman School of Medicine presented the Cleaner Air for Lower Cardiometabolic Risk trial (<a href=\"https:\/\/clinicaltrials.gov\/study\/NCT05994937?term=NCT05994937&amp;rank=1\">NCT05994937<\/a>), a randomized, double-blind, sham-controlled trial of portable air cleaners in 150 adults with prediabetes and early cardiovascular-kidney-metabolic (CKM) syndrome. Participants were randomized to an air cleaner fitted with a high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filter (n=76) or to a sham device with the filter removed (n=74). The sham units looked and sounded the same, so participants did not know which one they had. The devices ran continuously in participants\u2019 bedrooms, and a bedroom monitor recorded fine particulate matter (PM2.5) throughout. Each participant wore a blinded continuous glucose monitor (CGM) for 1 week before treatment and again after 4 weeks of filtration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The primary endpoint was the CGM coefficient of variation (CV), which measures how much blood sugar swings over the monitoring period. Exploratory endpoints included glucose responses after breakfast, identified from CGM traces with a machine learning algorithm, and the homeostasis model assessment of insulin resistance (HOMA-IR). Mean age was 47 years, 44% of participants were women, and mean HbA1c was 5.9% in the filter group and 5.8% in the sham group.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>HEPA filtration lowered bedroom PM2.5 by 36% compared with sham (95% CI \u201349% to \u201319%; <em>P<\/em>&lt;0.001). The primary CGM analysis included 112 participants, and the breakfast analyses included 52. The CGM CV was 7.7% lower with filtration (95% CI \u201314.0% to \u20131.0%; <em>P<\/em>=0.025). After breakfast, the incremental area under the curve (iAUC) was 16.6% lower (95% CI \u201326.9% to \u20134.9%; <em>P<\/em>=0.008), and peak glucose amplitude was 13.2% lower (95% CI \u201323.6% to \u20131.5%; <em>P<\/em>=0.030). Time to peak, which depends more on meal composition and insulin stores, did not change (<em>P<\/em>=0.95). HOMA-IR fell with filtration, but the difference was not significant (\u20131.29; 95% CI \u20132.95 to 0.37; <em>P<\/em>=0.13).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Based on CGM feeding studies in adults with prediabetes, the drop in iAUC corresponds to about 7 g of carbohydrate at breakfast. <em>&#8220;<\/em>Our intervention had an equivalent effect to removing 2 teaspoons of sugar from the meal<em>,&#8221;<\/em> said Wittkopp in an interview at the meeting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>She explained that fine particulate matter interferes with insulin signaling, the cascade that moves GLUT4 glucose transporters to the surface of skeletal muscle cells so they can pull sugar out of the blood. <em>&#8220;<\/em>So, when we reduce the pollution, we improve that signaling<em>,&#8221;<\/em> she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The effect was small, participants did not log their food, and the trial ran for only 4 weeks in a relatively low-pollution area, so it is unclear whether the results apply to settings with heavier pollution. The outcomes were limited to glucose measures. The team has a biobank from the cohort and plans to study inflammatory biomarkers, metabolomics, and transcriptomics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Portable HEPA air cleaners cost less than $1 a month in electricity to run and have no meaningful side effects. Physicians cannot prescribe them yet, but Wittkopp said the findings give clinicians reason to discuss them with patients. <em>&#8220;<\/em>These are small changes, but if sustained over time, they could have a lot of cumulative benefit for cardiometabolic health in general,<em>&#8220;<\/em> she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Air pollution ranks second only to high blood pressure as a risk factor for early death worldwide, and it is the third-largest global risk factor for type 2 diabetes. Observational studies have linked periods of higher pollution exposure to higher fasting glucose and HbA1c, even in people without diabetes. Whether bedroom HEPA filtration improves glycemic [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40617,"featured_media":139969,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"aside","meta":{"footnotes":"","_ppma_block_editor_authors":""},"categories":[1093,8],"tags":[1096,47,185],"tmauthors":[],"ppma_author":[1071],"class_list":{"0":"post-139968","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-aside","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-aha-2026","8":"category-news","9":"tag-aha-2026","10":"tag-featured","11":"tag-news","12":"post_format-post-format-aside","13":"author-joseph-nasr-md"},"authors":[{"term_id":1071,"user_id":40617,"is_guest":0,"slug":"joseph-nasr-md","display_name":"Joseph Nasr","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/530a343d3e08798e23303e3dcee6bf2f19a4e0175dee36ab2ec2fe9681868aa3?s=96&r=g","avatar_alt":"","avatar_decorative":"","author_category":"1","first_name":"Joseph","last_name":"Nasr","user_url":"","job_title":"Research Fellow, Baim Institute for Clinical Research","description":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cardiologynownews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139968","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cardiologynownews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cardiologynownews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cardiologynownews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/40617"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cardiologynownews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=139968"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cardiologynownews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139968\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":139970,"href":"https:\/\/cardiologynownews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139968\/revisions\/139970"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cardiologynownews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/139969"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cardiologynownews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=139968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cardiologynownews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=139968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cardiologynownews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=139968"},{"taxonomy":"tmauthors","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cardiologynownews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftmauthors&post=139968"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cardiologynownews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fppma_author&post=139968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}