Living in the city makes
you inevitably have to familiarize yourself with traffic jams. Apparently not
only makes us tired, stressed, emotional, and late to the office, traffic jams
also adversely affect health. Research shows that congestion can increase the
risk of heart attack. How did it happen?
Traffic jams increase the risk of heart attack
Research shows that some
people who have had a heart attack state that they were stuck in traffic.
This finding was reported
by researchers at the 49th Annual Conference of the American Heart Association
at the symposium of the Cardiovascular Disease Epidemiology and Prevention.
Annete Peters, Ph.D.,
lead author of the study from the Institute of Epidemiology, Germany, stated that
the risk of healthy people having a heart attack due to being stuck in traffic,
whether driving alone or taking public transportation, could be 3.2 times higher
than groups of people who are already at high risk of the disease (both due to
age, lifestyle, and a history of other heart problems).
The results showed that
about eight percent of heart attacks in this group of healthy people were
affected by traffic jams experienced before the attack appeared.
In addition, this study
also shows that women have a risk of heart attack due to congestion five times
higher than men. However, researchers have not been so sure what caused it.
It should be noted that
this study does not state that traffic jam is the cause of a heart attack.
Congestion is only one of many other factors that can increase your risk.
Why?
To find out the exact
cause of the appearance of a heart attack after being caught in a traffic jam,
Peters and his colleagues conducted a follow-up test and collaborated with
researchers from the University of Rochester, New York.
There were around 120
healthy volunteers included in this study. The volunteers were then equipped
with an electrocardiogram and other devices capable of measuring exposure to air
pollution and also noise on the streets.
The participants were
then asked to carry out their daily routine as usual. Unfortunately, the
results of the study are not yet available so that the exact cause cannot be
known.
However, Peters suspects
that stress, road noise and vehicle exhaust emissions are factors that
contribute to the increase in the risk of heart attack due to congestion.
When stuck, this
pollution exposure automatically becomes more inhaled by the body. Not only
that, because stress also does have a real negative impact on the body as a
whole.
Negative effects of pollution and noise on heart health
Air pollution contains
various kinds of harmful compounds for the body. Quoted from the page of the
American Heart Association, Dr. Luepker, an epidemiologist, states that the
short-term effects of acute pollution tend to attack people who are elderly and
already have heart disease.
For example, people with
atherosclerosis are at high risk of being directly affected by pollution.
When pollutants enter the
body and irritate the lungs and blood vessels around the heart, this can
trigger a heart attack.
Pollution also has an
inflammatory effect on the heart which causes chronic cardiovascular problems.
That way, a heart attack can easily appear suddenly.
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