Airplane noise significantly increases the risk of a heart attack and the severity of its consequences
Cardiovascular disease has been the undisputed leader among other ailments in terms of mortality for many years, and one of the main killers on this sad list is myocardial infarction.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in the United States alone, myocardial infarction is recorded every 40 seconds, and in Australia three years ago, the number of heart attacks, including MI, in people aged 25 years and older reached about 160 per day.
The causes that provoke cardiovascular diseases are well known: heredity, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, overweight, diabetes, smoking, sedentary lifestyle and others. And recently, employees of the University Medical Center in Mainz (Germany) unexpectedly added aircraft noise to this list.
This became apparent after a series of experiments with mice, which doctors exposed to the sound of aircraft engines with a noise level of 72 to 85 dB around the clock for four days. For comparison, the volume of a human voice during a conversation is 60-70, an alarm clock 70-80, and a vacuum cleaner 60-80 dB.
As experiments showed, under the influence of strong noise, inflammatory cells began to stick to the walls of the blood vessels of mice, after which doctors provoked a heart attack in them, blocking one of the main blood vessels supplying the heart. In mice exposed to loud noise, cardiac function deteriorated significantly more and the area of damage to the heart muscle increased due to an increased immune response.
Conclusion: high noise, comparable to the noise of aircraft engines, is a significant risk factor for people who are predisposed to myocardial infarction.
