Noise Annoying You? Maybe You Should Move-Researcher Says

A Swedish study suggests, people who live near airports may have an elevated risk of high blood pressure due to noise pollution, according to Reuters.

Researchers at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm and associates found that among more than 2,000 men followed for a decade, those who lived in areas with the greatest noise from a nearby airport had a higher risk of developing high blood pressure.

"It's possible that the constant noise of planes buzzing overhead is a source of chronic stress for some of these individuals, which in turn may raise their blood pressure," explained Mats Rosenlund. "It is thought that aircraft noise causes stress problems when it interferes with people's ability to think, relax or sleep, for example," Rosenlund told Reuters Health.

A wide range of factors are known to affect heart health, and it's not yet clear that airplane noise is directly responsible for the higher blood pressure seen in this study, according to Rosenlund. The researcher says that data shows there is an association between noise exposure and high blood pressure. The study involved 2,027 men from four municipalities surrounding the Stockholm Arlanda airport who were free of high blood pressure at the study's outset. Their aircraft-noise exposure was estimated using government air traffic data, and the researchers tracked any new diagnoses of high blood pressure over the following 10 years.

Twenty percent of men exposed to the highest average levels of airplane noise were 19 percent were more likely to develop high blood pressure than their counterparts with lower-level noise exposure, according to the medical journal Epidemiology.

Age, weight, income, and exercise habits had no effect on the link between aircraft noise and elevated blood pressure according to the study.

Its too early to say-according to Roseland-that definitively blood pressure is elevated by aircraft noise-and added that a forthcoming multiple airport study being done may have more detailed information. On the other hand, he pointed out, people who are "constantly annoyed" by airplane noise might want to consider a neighborhood more conducive to their overall happiness, Roseland said.

FMI: http://ki.se/ki/jsp/polopoly.jsp;jsessionid=afb45yJWsi3_IVc4uz?l=en&d=130,
www.nonoise.org/resource/trans/air/airport.htm