14 DAY TRIAL // A new research carried out by the Charit? University Medical Center in Berlin showed that exposure to chronic noise increases the risk of heart attack.
The team of scientists compared more than 2,000 heart attack patients (men and women with ages of 56 and 58 respectively) to 2,000 control patients.
Results show that general environmental noise, such as traffic, affected both sexes, increasing the risk of heart attack by nearly 50 percent for men and three-fold for women. Noise in the workplace raised heart attack risk for men by nearly one-third, but it did not affect women's heart attack risk.
Stefan Willich, Director of the Institute for Social Medicine, Epidemiology and Health Economics at Charit?, says: "Our results demonstrate that chronic noise exposure is associated with a mildly to moderately increased risk of heart attack. The increase appears more closely associated with actual sound levels rather than with subjective annoyance. However, there were differences between men and women, and these need further investigation."
Willich adds that the theory that might explain the link between noise exposure and heart attack risk is that of noise increasing psychological stress and anger.
This leads to physiological changes in the body, such as increased levels of adrenaline and noradrenaline, which are associated with higher blood pressure and plasma lipids.
Another study from researchers at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor also shows a negative effect of loud noise. Their study shows working in loud places can raise blood pressure levels. Results demonstrate that blood pressure is more affected by overall noise exposure while the immediate peak noises affect heart rate.