Horns of angry motorists, howling sirens, so many unpleasant noises that you hear every day under your windows. In addition to irritating your nerves, these inconveniences could well also cause harm to your health.
According to a study published in JACC: Advances, traffic noise is associated with an increased risk of hypertension. “We were a bit surprised that the association between road traffic noise and hypertension was significant even after adjusting for air pollution,” said Jing Huang, an assistant professor in the Department of Health Sciences at the University. Labor and Environment at the School of Public Health, Peking University (China) China, and lead author of the study.
To achieve these results, the researchers analyzed data from over 240,000 people (aged 40 to 69) who did not have hypertension. The team managed to determine the level of noise generated by road traffic according to the home address of each participant. For eight years, they determined the number of people who developed hypertension.
Noise and pollution
If people who live near a noisy road axis have a greater risk of having hypertension, the risk also increases with noise level. Those who were most exposed to traffic noise and air pollution had the highest risk of hypertension. “Road traffic noise and traffic-related air pollution coexist around us. It is essential to explore the independent effects of road traffic noise, rather than the total environment,” recommends Prof. Huang.
“To date, this is the first large-scale prospective study directly investigating the effect of road traffic noise on the incidence of newly diagnosed hypertension,” said Jiandong Zhang, a cardiovascular disease researcher. in the Division of Cardiology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and author of the accompanying editorial commentary.