New research found that living near a busy road increases your risk of having high blood pressure. The sound from traffic, like engines and horns, can make your hypertension levels rise. So public health organizations are suggesting measures to lessen the noise created by these vehicles.
It has been suggested that noisy road traffic could cause high blood pressure. However, there was not enough proof to be sure if it was the noise or the air pollution that was the cause of this risk. The new research has shown that it is the noise from road traffic that can lead to having high blood pressure.
The researchers who conducted the study were quite surprised to find that even after adjusting for air pollution, there was still a strong relationship between road traffic noise and hypertension. Jing Huang, who is an assistant professor at Peking University in Beijing, China and the leader of the research team, commented on this.
Previous studies studied the connection between traffic noise and hypertension, but could not prove that one caused the other. This new research used data from UK Biobank to track people’s health over a period of time to prove that there is an actual causation.
For this study, scientists looked at data collected from over 240,000 people between the ages of 40 to 69 who do not suffer from high blood pressure. They used a European method (Common Noise Assessment Method) to figure out the amount of noise coming from roads around each person’s home address.
After studying people for 8.1 years, researchers found out that those who stay near roads with noisy traffic have a higher chance of developing hypertension. They also noticed that the risk of getting hypertension goes up as you experience more noise from these roads.
Researchers found that even after adjusting for other influences such as breathing in fine particles or nitrogen dioxide, people who had high exposure to both traffic noise and air pollution were more likely to have high blood pressure. This suggests that there are independent effects of road traffic noise, in addition to air pollution. Scientists say it’s important to study the individual effects of traffic noise instead of looking at the overall environment.
The research shows that living near a lot of traffic noise can raise our blood pressure, so it’s important to do something about it. This could include setting stricter rules about how loud traffic should be, fixing roads, making cities more efficient, and using quieter cars.
Jiandong Zhang from the University of North Carolina said that this is the first big study to look at the possible connection between road traffic noise and hypertension (high blood pressure). The results of this research could lead to people and society modifying road traffic noise in order to improve everyone’s heart health.
Huang stated that scientists are doing research to figure out how loud noises from roads can cause people to have high blood pressure. This research is called a “field study” and the results will be published in a scientific journal called JACC: Advances on March 22, 2023.
Reference: Jing Huang, Teng Yang, John Gulliver, Anna L. Hansell, Mohammad Mamouei, Yutong Samuel Cai, Kazem Rahimi. Road Traffic Noise and Incidence of Primary Hypertension. JACC: Advances, 2023; 100262 DOI: 10.1016/j.jacadv.2023.100262
