Living by busy road easier to have high blood pressure: study

People living by busy road and consequently have long-time exposure to polluted air and loud noise should be careful as a recent study found that they have higher risk to develop high blood pressure.

The study, published Tuesday on the European Heart Journal, reached the conclusion through following over 41,000 people in five different European countries for five to nine years.

It said up to one extra person per 100 people of the same age group living in the most polluted areas of cities would develop high blood pressure compared to those living in less polluted areas.

Referring to traffic noise, the study found that people living in noisy streets had a 6 percent increased risk of developing high blood pressure compared to those living in quieter streets.

Here noisy streets are defined as those have night time noise levels of 50 decibles, which is described as light traffic or the sound of a running refrigerator according to the www.noisehelp.com.

Air pollution and streets noise share many common sources but the measurements to restrain the two factors differ a lot, said Professor Barbara Hoffmann, who led the analysis and specialized in environmental epidemiology.

"One very important aspect is that these associations can be seen in people living well below current European air pollution standards. This means, the current legislation does not protect the European population adequately from adverse effects of air pollution," Hoffmann said.

According to the study, 15 percent of the people reported that they developed hypertension or started to take medicine to lower blood pressure during the targeted years while none of them had hypertension when they joined the research.

Researchers said that air pollution mainly affects the functioning of heart and blood vessels, as well as the nervous system while noise is thought to affect both the nervous and hormonal systems. Endi