Gabriella Captur from University College London and colleagues analysed available population-based cardiac MRI data and found that chronic exposure to aircraft noise at night is associated with worse cardiac structure and function. The researchers used data from 21,360 people from the UK Biobank repository who had undergone this type of examination. Of these, 3,635 lived near four major airports: two in London, Birmingham and Manchester. According to the UK Civil Aviation Authority, three per cent of the latter were exposed to elevated noise levels (45 decibels or more) at night and nine per cent to a 24-hour average (50 decibels or more). Statistical analysis of the data was performed using generalised linear models, adjusting for demographic, socioeconomic, lifestyle and environmental factors. The results were published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
It turned out that those exposed to elevated noise levels at night had an average of 7 percent greater left ventricular myocardial mass and 4 percent greater thickness than those without such exposure, which is associated with a 32 percent higher risk of major cardiovascular events (heart attack, stroke, heart failure, and death). They also had worse myocardial contractility: global circumferential strain was 8 percent less on average, which is associated with a 27 percent higher risk of major cardiovascular events. According to the authors' calculations, a hypothetical person with cardiac MRI abnormalities characteristic of exposure to aircraft noise at night has an approximately fourfold increased risk of major cardiovascular events.