The short version
- Among 108,051 adults in a Boston hospital biobank, a third lived where road, rail and aircraft noise averaged more than 50 dB over a day.
- Those people were 8% to 10% more likely to develop high cholesterol, high blood pressure or diabetes, and had higher odds of a major heart event.
- The link was about the same for people who slept well and people who did not, but the study is preliminary and cannot show that noise caused the harm.
Researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital matched the medical records of 108,051 adults in the Mass General Brigham Biobank, collected between 2010 and 2020, against US Department of Transportation estimates of road, rail and aircraft noise near each home. A third of them lived where the 24-hour average topped 50 dB. Those people were 8% to 10% more likely to develop high cholesterol, high blood pressure or diabetes, and had higher odds of a major heart event, after allowing for age, sex, sleep quality, air pollution, income and mental health. The link was about the same in the 34.7% who had a sleep disorder or slept too little or too much as in everyone else. The work was presented as a preliminary abstract at the American Heart Association’s Scientific Sessions in Chicago, November 6 to 9.
“It was surprising to find that sleep health appeared to play no role,” said lead author Joseph Nguyen. The release gives no hazard ratios or confidence intervals, and the abstract has not been peer reviewed. It is an observational study, so it cannot show that noise caused the harm, and a 24-hour average hides the loudest moments.
It adds to a one-night experiment we covered in October, in which quiet traffic sounds stiffened sleepers’ arteries by morning.
