|
HowToPreventHeartDisease.com |
||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
 |
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Stay Away Noisy Environment to Avoid High Blood Pressure! Previous research has shown that people with high blood pressure, also known as hypertension, have an increased risk of developing heart disease, stroke, kidney failure and dementia. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), when a person’s blood pressure is 140/90 or more, he or she is said to have high blood pressure. The first number (140) measures maximum heart pressure (systolic), while the second (90) measures pressure when the heart is in a resting phase (diastolic). Excessive salt intake has always been blamed for causing a person’s blood pressure to rise. However, a recent study by a team of European scientists led by Lars Jarup of Imperial College London also revealed that noise at night from airport and road traffic could actually increase blood pressure during sleep. The findings were published in European Heart Journal, put out by the European Society of Cardiologists on February 13, 2008. In the study, 140 sleeping volunteers were monitored in their homes near the airports, with their blood pressure checked every 15 minutes with remote devices. The scientists found that a noise louder than 35 decibels (corresponding to a plane flying overhead or heavy vehicle traffic) did cause a hike in blood pressure. Even a partner snoring loudly could also produce the same effect, as revealed in the study. The short-term effects of loud noise during sleep have been documented in the laboratory settings but not in populations living under normal conditions.
An average increase of 6.2 in systolic blood pressure, and 7.4 for diastolic blood pressure were caused by aircraft noise. The figures for heavy road traffic were only slightly less. The researchers also found that it was the loudness, rather than the source, that was the critical factor in boosting blood pressure. It is known that noise from air traffic can be a source of irritation, but this new study shows that it can be damaging for people's health, too. Such findings no doubt lend support to the opponents of noise pollution and proposed airport expansions, including at London's Heathrow, one of the 4 European air hubs examined in the study. The others 3 airports serve Athens, Stockholm and Milan. The other study by the same researchers, who monitored 6,000 men and women, show that people who live under a busy flight path for at least 5 years were found to be at a greater risk of developing high blood pressure. They also found that an increase in aeroplane noise of 10 decibels during nighttime increased the risk of high blood pressure by 14 percent in both men and women. The report is scheduled to be published next month in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives. The findings of both studies come in light amid continuing controversy over a proposed new runway at Heathrow, one of the busiest international airports in the world. It is expected that the number of flights serving the airport will be raised from the current nearly half a million to the projected 700,000. As such, health experts insist that appropriate measures should be taken to reduce noise levels from aircraft in particular during nighttime for many people living near Heathrow. Besides these two studies, the researchers, based in Athens, Stockholm, Milan and London, are currently investigating whether combined exposure to noise and air pollution increases the risk of heart disease.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
 |
|||||||||||||||||||||||
Copyright
2007-2012 © HowToPreventHeartDisease.com . All Rights Reserved. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||
