STUDY Traffic jams raise risks for heart attacks

SCRIPPS HOWARD
Being stuck in traffic raises the risk of having a heart attack within the hour almost three-fold, according to a new study.
While other research in the past has suggested that exposure to traffic in urban areas and risk for heart disease are related, "we found that the time subjects spent in cars, on public transportation, motorcycles or bicycles was consistently linked with an increase in risk for heart attacks," said Annette Peters, an epidemiologist at the National Research Center for Environment and Health in Neuherberg, Germany.
Peters' team reported its findings today in The New England Journal of Medicine.
How study was done
Peters and colleagues used data from nearly 700 heart attack survivors in southern Germany interviewed at bedside about what they had been doing in the four days before they suffered an attack. The research was done between February 1999 and July 2001.
The study was designed to take into account other short-term risk factors for heart attack, such as strenuous exercise or anger, but found that these did not change the association between exposure to traffic and heart attacks.
Peters said the link did not seem to be due either to commuting to work or to the stress associated with getting up in the morning.
The researchers suggest instead that a combination of factors, such as stress, noise and traffic-related air pollution "may all contribute" to the increased risk.