**5. Conclusions**

PM2.5 air pollution in China, in particular in Southern Chinese, is related to atherogenic surrogates, independent of traditional risk factors, with potential implications in both dietary and air pollution reduction strategies for atherosclerosis prevention.

**Author Contributions:** K.W.: Project conception and design, research administration, statistical analysis and interpretation of data, drafting and revision of the article and final approval of the version to be published. C.L.: Provision and interpretation of PM2.5 data in China, revision of the article and final approval of the version to be published. Y.Y.: Project conception, interpretation of data, revision of the article and final approval of the version to be published. D.G.: project conception and design, co-administration of the field work at Yu County, revision of the articles and final approval of the version to be published. P.C.: Project conception and design, performance of ultrasonography analysis and interpretation of data, drafting, revision of the article and final approval of the version to be published. T.C.Y.K.: Design of project, interpretation of data, revision of the article and final approval of the version to be published. D.S.C.: Project conception and design, interpretation of data, drafting and revision of the article, and final approval of the version to be published. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

**Funding:** This work was supported by The Chinese Atherosclerosis Trust, Madam Leung Kit Wah Project Fund, Dr Stanley Ho Medical Development Foundation (grant and donation), Star Industrial Company and Dr Thomas HC Cheung Trust: They provided unrestricted sponsorships for the present study, without any involvement in study design, data collection, analysis or interpretation, nor in the writing of this report or the decision to submit the paper for publication.

**Institutional Review Board Statement:** The study was conducted according to the guidelines of the Declaration of Helsinki, and approved by the Institutional Review Board.

**Informed Consent Statement:** Informed consent was obtained from all subjects involved in the study.

**Data Availability Statement:** The research data will be available from the corresponding author to the editor and Atmosphere readers on reasonable request.

**Acknowledgments:** We wish to acknowledge the valuable support of the Chinese Atherosclerosis Trust, Leung Kit Wah Project Fund, Stanley Ho Medical Development Foundation Trust, The Star Industrial Company Fund of The Chinese University of Hong Kong and Thomas HC Cheung Trust in sponsoring the study. We also acknowledge The Macau Heart Foundation, for helping recruitment of subjects, and the Pathology Department of Centro Hospitalar Conde de Sao Januario in Macau for the blood assays. We acknowledge the superb statistical analyses and clerical work of Guo Cui of the School of Public Health, Mikki Wong and Chu Pui Yan, Daphne, of The Chinese University of Hong Kong.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest.
