Stuck in traffic? Watch for heart attacks from fumes, stress

William Atkins
Sunday, 15 March 2009 20:22

Science - Health

The researchers found that drivers and passengers were equally at risk from having heart attacks during these heavy traffic conditions.

In addition, women were at greater risk than men.

In fact, they were approximately five times more likely to have a heart attack, when compared to the three-times additional risk for both men and women.

The researchers also found that  elderly males, the unemployed, and people with a history of  angina were also adversely affected health-wise by heavy traffic.

Dr. Peters commented, “Driving or riding in heavy traffic poses an additional risk of eliciting a heart attack in persons already at elevated risk.” [American Heart Association: “Traffic exposure may have a triggering effect on heart attack”]

The Peters team confirmed earlier research, in 2004, which studied heavy traffic and heart attacks.

Dr. Peters states, “We were initially surprised to observe such a strong connection between traffic and heart attacks, which we first published in 2004 based on a case series of 691 patients. It is reassuring that we were able to reconfirm this association in an extended case series. Now it’s important to find out what is behind this, whether it is air pollution or stress or both.” [AHA]

And, the researchers are performing additional research to explain more specific reasons why heavy traffic causes additional risk of heart attacks. Hopefully the new research will show more specifics on whether stress or fumes, or both, are the major cause of heart attacks via traffic jams.

You can reduce the incidents of traffic jams by doing some common sense practices. Go to the LiveScience.com article "The Science of Traffic Jams."