Why Worry About the Dolphins ---We're Killing Each Other With Noise

The Times
from "Noise link to danger of heart attacks"
By Sam Lister, Health Correspondent

A study of more than 4,000 men and women has found associations between long-term exposure to higher decibel sounds and susceptibility to a heart attack. Furthermore, the risk appears to be linked more to the physiological effect of environmental and work noise, rather than the annoyance and stress that it causes.

Both sexes were vulnerable but were affected in very different ways, according to the study, which was published yesterday in the online edition of the European Heart Journal.

General environmental noise, such as caused by traffic, made women three times more likely to have a heart attack, but increased the risk for men by less than 50 per cent. In contrast, workplace noise increased the risk for men by nearly a third, but did not seem to have an impact on women.

The heart attack risk rose with increasing noise levels until a threshold point, above which it remained constant. This appeared to be about 60 decibels, which is the level of noise typically experienced in a large, busy office.