Elderly living near noisy roads have 'increased stroke risk'

ConclusionThis modelling study has examined the associations of exposure to traffic noise, independent of air pollution, on all-cause and cardiovascular mortality, as well as on cardiovascular hospital admissions in adult and elderly populations.It has shown a link between increased noise from traffic pollution and risk of hospital admission for stroke and death. Possible reasons for deaths were most likely to be linked to heart or blood vessel disease, which could be due to increased blood pressure, sleep problems and stress from the noise.The limitations of this study are that the exposure model used is likely to overestimate noise at low exposure levels and underestimate noise in areas with heavy traffic on minor roads. This may result in bias when analysing dose-response relationships.The model did not take into account population activities, such as working and commuting outside residential areas, or residence characteristics, such as windows towards roads or building materials. The researchers did not have data on residential histories, which may have introduced further exposure misclassification.Associations found in this study are in agreement with some, but not all, other previous work in this area, so caution should be taken with interpreting this small increased risk. There was often a lack of dose-response relationship, which requires further investigation. The whole populations study used London inhabitants as their population, which may reduce the ability to gen...
Source: NHS News Feed - Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Lifestyle/exercise Heart/lungs Neurology Older people Source Type: news