Subscription Center
Mar 16, 2009 03:30 PM | 1
.jpg)
Few things are more frustrating than being stuck in traffic, and now a new study says that it may also triple your risk of having a heart attack.
The study, released Friday at the American Heart Association's Conference on Cardiovascular Disease Epidemiology and Prevention (in Palm Harbor, Fla.), adds weight to a growing body of evidence that traffic hikes heart attack risk, says lead study author Annette Peters, an epidemiologist at the Institute of Epidemiology at Helmholtz Zentrum Muchen in Munich, Germany. The reason? Not sure, Peters says. But she speculates that fine particles spewed from car exhaust pipes are likely culprits. These pollutants can penetrate lung tissue and enter the bloodstream, potentially causing clots. There is also evidence that inhaling smog speeds up the heart rate, which may also up the odds of suffering a heart attack, Peters says.
She says the risk of heart attack after being in traffic was five times higher for women and six times higher for people with heart disease, specifically a disorder known as angina (chest pain that occurs when heart blood vessels are blocked). But that doesn't mean you need to stress out any more than usual if you're in a traffic jam: she notes that if you're young and relatively healthy (read: free of heart disease), the findings translate into an added risk of close to zero.
Peters and her colleagues surveyed 1,454 heart attack survivors between the ages of 25 and 74 in Augsburg, Germany, to determine if they had been in traffic immediately before their attacks.
Approximately 1,260,000 people in the U.S. suffer from heart attacks every year, according to the American Heart Association. You can calculate your personal risk of suffering from a heart attack over the next 10 years here.
Image © iStockphoto/egdigital
Tags:
traffic,
attack,
heart
More News Blog:
Next: Happy 3/14, also known as pi day
Previous: God on the brain? Scientists map religious thoughts with scans
See what we're tweeting about
Horganism Ahab to severed whale head: O head! thou hast seen enough to split the planets and make an infidel of Abraham and not one syllable is thine!
FlyingTrilobite Picture it #topoli: @iamdavidmiller and @oliviachow walking in slo-mo toward City Hall with The Chemical Brothers' "Galvanize" playing.
BoraZ Why a Science Experiment Gone Bad Doesn't Make Me a Criminal http://t.co/1jWbYNgtqw
Deadline: Jul 15 2013
Reward: $5,000 USD
SciBX: Science-Business eXchange, a joint publication from the makers
Deadline: Jun 29 2013
Reward: $7,000 USD
The Seeker for this Challenge desires proposals for chemical methods that could rapidly degrade a dilute aqueous solution
Powered By: 
YES! Send me a free issue of Scientific American with no obligation to continue the subscription. If I like it, I will be billed for the one-year subscription.
1 Comments
Add Comment"she notes that if you're young and relatively healthy (read: free of heart disease), the findings translate into an added risk of close to zero".
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat about the effects on children, who in other ways are more vulnerable to the adverse impacts of traffic?