Listen Up: Noise Pollution May Be Bad for Your Heart

You wake up with a jolt, startled by the loud shriek of a siren. Your heart seems to be beating through your chest. Then, assessing the situation -- it's just a passing ambulance -- you drift back to sleep.

In an increasingly urbanized world, noise disturbances are just part of life. For some, living near airports, it's the constant sound of planes flying overhead. For others in bustling cities, it may be a passing train -- and for many, it's traffic noise -- heavy and constant. You may even get used to it, no longer noticing a change in how you feel from being immersed in all the commotion.

But a growing body of research highlighted recently by groups across the pond, including the European Society of Cardiology, finds that noise can impact our cardiovascular risk, from disrupting nighttime sleep and raising stress levels to increasing blood pressure and heart rate and reducing vascular function that keeps our blood smoothly flowing throughout our bodies without incident. And even if you've grown accustomed to the din, researchers say, it may still quietly tax your heart.

"Noise should be considered as a novel cardiovascular risk factor," says Dr. Thomas Muenzel, cardiologist and professor of internal medicine at University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz in Germany, in an email. Muenzel led a review of research on the effect of environmental noise exposure, evaluating everything from a multi-airport North American study to lab and field tests of people exposed to real or simulated airport, road and railway noise across Europe. The review was published last year in the European Heart Journal, the official journal of the European Society of Cardiology, which joined two other European cardiovascular groups beginning in August to raise awareness about the effect of noise and air pollution on cardiovascular risk and the need for governmental action to improve environmental health.

Based on research to date, environmental noise contributes to at least 10,000 premature deaths due to heart attacks and strokes in Europe, according to the European environment -- state and outlook 2015, or SOER 2015, a comprehensive report issued to inform European environmental policy. The World Health Organization has also been closely evaluating the link, but statistics estimating cardiovascular deaths related to noise don't exist for the U.S.

Those seemingly most at risk: "People living close to streets and close to railways. People living close to airports [and] patients who already have cardiovascular disease," Muenzel says. Among those exposed to higher levels of noise pollution, he adds: "We see more patients with [heart attack], coronary artery disease, heart failure and arrhythmia."

Traffic can be a double whammy from belching air pollution to increasing the noise quotient of modern life. But researchers are careful to emphasize that while the combination of environmental factors can make matters worse, noise -- independently -- can contribute to cardiovascular risk.

In his review of mounting evidence that noise pollution is a cardiovascular risk factor, Muenzel cites a prediction by the Nobel Prize winner Robert Koch in 1910 that: "One day man will have to fight noise as fiercely as cholera and pest." Besides its effect on heart health, stress levels and sleep disturbances, noise is also blamed for impaired cognitive performance (try to think straight with the construction outside your window), and emerging research finds it may be linked to an increased risk of developing diabetes.

Still, at present, the proportion of cardiovascular deaths attributed to noise pollution is dwarfed by other concerns -- including air pollution -- and traditional risk factors that increase the rate of heart attack and stroke. The effect of noise pollution on cardiovascular risk is "modest compared to things like smoking, obesity, having diabetes," says Dr. Gregg Fonarow, spokesman for the American Heart Association and professor of cardiovascular medicine at the University of California--Los Angeles. "But this exposure to the physiologic stress of environmental noise at night can further elevate blood pressure. So, there's an interplay with those traditional risk factors and the exposure to this stress."

Fonarow says much of the studies looking at effect of environmental noise have honed in on sleep disturbances, which can impact hormone sensitivity and insulin resistance. As noted in the review Muenzel led, there's concern that excessive environmental noise could raise one's risk of developing diabetes, in which a person's body doesn't produce enough insulin or the insulin doesn't work properly to regulate blood sugar. Having diabetes also raises one's risk of cardiovascular complications, such as heart attack and stroke.

Moving away from the airport, busy thoroughfares and other urban bustle to a quiet life in the country is one approach, experts say, to mitigate exposure to noise pollution. But for many that's simply not an option. So, Muenzel and others advocate societal and technological solutions, from quieting air traffic to enforcing noise ordinances, and individual changes like wearing ear plugs when mowing the lawn, for example.

In addition, if your life happens where the noise is, clinicians say, opting for a temporary reprieve from all the commotion, such as through yoga and meditation, may also provide some benefit. "Excess sound is not only bad for ear health, but also creates a significant amount of stress," says Dr. Andrew Freeman, director of clinical cardiology at National Jewish Health in Denver, who serves on a subcommittee on best practices and quality improvement at the American College of Cardiology. "Stress, in particular that counters that mindfulness, can significantly worsen cardiovascular outcomes."

He says that more study is still needed to understand exactly how noise may affect heart health.

For now, though, one solution he suggests to address all the noise associated with modern living is to quiet the mind. This is the cornerstone of meditation, which has been shown to improve health, Freeman says. "I think practicing quietness is an important part of what we might consider doing every day."

Michael Schroeder is a health editor at U.S. News. You can follow him on Twitter or email him at mschroeder@usnews.com.