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Sustained Noise Can Increase Heart Attack Risk
Sustained exposure to loud noise is not only a threat to hearing, it may also spark a heart attack in people predisposed to cardiovascular disease, a study suggests.
In a study of about 2,000 hospitalized patients for a heart attack and an equal number hospitalized for other reasons, researchers at the Charite University Medical Centre in Berlin found that heart attack victims had experienced a far greater "noise burden'' at work or home than those in the comparison group.
The study, which involved interviews with patients at 32 Berlin hospitals and measurements of ambient sound in neighborhoods throughout the city, found that men and women did not react the same way to noise. With environmental noise, such as heavy traffic, machinery like lawn mowers, yelling children and barking dogs, the study showed that men with sustained exposure had a 50 per cent higher risk of heart attack, while women had a risk three times higher than their counterparts not regularly exposed to loud sound.
When it came to workplace noise, men's risk for heart attack went up by nearly one-third, while women didn't seem affected at all, the study showed. Willich said researchers aren't sure why men and women react differently to noise but theorizes that it may be based on long-ingrained evolutionary roles making men more sensitive to workplace sounds and women to those involving the home environment, such as a child's cry.
The mechanism that sets off a heart attack in both men and women’s stress is thought to be the same . Researchers hypothesized, it is not the stress that arises from annoyance at unwanted sound for example: “a neighbour playing the piano loudly may severely irritate one person while another "may love it,''.
Men and women will be equally affected by loud sounds as this causes stress hormones like adrenaline and norepinephrine to rise, which in turn push up blood pressure and alter cholesterol and other fat levels in the blood. This may result in a heart attack in some people concluded the study, published in the European Heart Journal.
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