(DCWatchdog.com) – A new bombshell study revealed that the noise in your neighborhood could affect your heart health, both before and after a heart attack.
One study found that people under 50 were more likely to have a heart attack if they lived in a loud area. Another study suggested that those who survived a heart attack had worse outcomes if neighborhood noise was an issue.
Marianne Zeller from the University of Burgundy and Hospital of Dijon, France and the lead author of the second study said, “These data provide some of the first insights that noise exposure can affect prognosis.”
Both studies were presented in London at the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) annual meeting.
Moreover, urban noise—construction, honking cars, bustling crowds—can be a chronic source of stress, and stress is known to increase heart risks.
To figure out how noisy neighborhoods impact heart health, doctors in Bremen, Germany, studied the noise levels in the neighborhoods of 430 people aged 50 or younger who were hospitalized for a heart attack, known medically as a myocardial infarction.
In addition, people with low heart risk factors—like not smoking or having diabetes—were more likely to end up in the hospital with a heart attack if they lived in a noisy area.
“Urban noise could significantly increase the risk of early-onset myocardial infarction in young people with low traditional risk factors,” concluded an ESC news release about the study.
In turn, the second study looked at the outcomes of people who had survived a heart attack. Zeller’s team tracked one-year follow-up data for 864 French survivors who had lived for at least 28 days after their heart attack.
They monitored a range of cardiovascular events, including cardiac death, rehospitalization for heart failure, emergency procedures like angioplasty or stents, stroke, or chest pains (angina).
They also measured the noise levels at each patient’s home address, finding an average level of 56 decibels over a 24-hour period.
Overall, a heart attack survivor’s chances of experiencing some kind of cardiovascular event increased by 25% for every 10-decibel rise in nighttime noise levels, the French team reported.
This pattern held true even after Zeller’s team accounted for other environmental stressors like air pollution or poverty.
These studies were presented at a medical conference, so their findings should be viewed as preliminary until they are published in a peer-reviewed journal.
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