Living near road could send you to early grave, researchers find

Traffic noise raises heart attack risk ‘because it puts body under stress’

Being exposed to a constant barrage of traffic noise raises the risk of a heart attack, a new study has found.

Those who live close to main roads or railway lines are most at risk, researchers discovered.

The constant stream of sounds from cars, trains or planes puts the body under stress, increasing the risk of a myocardial infarction (MI) – the medical name for a heart attack.

The study was published in journal Deutsches Ärzteblatt International.

Previously, such noise has also been found to raise the risk of stroke and early death.

The team examined information from state health insurers of over a million Germans over 40 living in Rhine-Main region of Germany.

Where they lived was matched precisely to road, rail, and traffic noise exposure measurements for 2005.

When the analysis was restricted to patients who died of heart attack up to 2014/2015, a statistically significant link was found between noise exposure and the risk of heart attack.

The results show an association between noise from road, rail and air traffic, and heart attack.

They found a lower risk linked to noise by aircraft – and said this can be explained by the fact that – unlike road and rail traffic noise – aircraft noise never remains continuously above 65 decibels.

Their analysis also indicates exposure to traffic noise influences not just the onset, but also the course of a heart disease.

Scientists say they found a correlation between noise exposure and the risk of heart attack due to the increase in ‘psychological and physiological stress’ on the body.

Due to the sheer number of people affected by noise pollution, action must be taken to prevent traffic noise, researchers argued.

Prof, Andreas Seidler, of the Technical University Dresden said: “Traffic noise noise can trigger complex psychological and physiological stress reactions.”

He added it activates the sympathetic nervous system – which controls the ‘fight or flight response’ raising blood pressure and pulse – which over time can damage the cardiovascular system.

It also activates the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis – our central stress response system.

He continued: “The World Health Organisation estimates that in the western part of Europe at least one million disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) are lost due to diseases induced by traffic noise.

“Our case-control study allows, for the first time, direct comparison of myocardial infarction [heart attack] risk estimates for aircraft and road and rail traffic noises on the basis of a very large data set from health insurers.

“For all three modes of traffic noise investigated, relationships were found with a diagnosis of myocardial infarction, although the association tends to be more pronounced for road and rail traffic noise than for aircraft noise.

“It is possible that the continuous noise level is less well suited to represent aircraft-noise- related MI risks than it is to represent health risks related to, in particular, road traffic noise.”