It’s been known for a long time that being in traffic raises blood pressure, but a new study from the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston shows that the air pollution caused by traffic does the same.
Over nine hundred patients from a Normative Aging Study were examined every four years from 1995 to 2006. The patients’ exposure to air traffic pollution was measured along with their blood pressure.
There appears to be a direct correlation to increased air traffic pollution and increased blood pressure among the volunteers over the time period of the study. The results of this study are supported by previous studies looking at the relationships between air pollution, heart attacks, and deaths due to cardiovascular disease.
This study demonstrates that our lifestyle choices affect our environment, which in turn affect our health. Encouraging people to use mass transportation would decrease traffic, and therefore, decrease everyone’s exposure to air pollution from traffic. That coupled with changes in urban planning that promote biking or walking to work will not only decrease pollution but it will increase the amount of daily exercise people get which should also lead to a decrease in high blood pressure and other cardiovascular diseases. [Yahoo! Health Day]
Social Media