It may be music to the ears of some, but airplane noise may be hard on the heart. A Swedish study suggests that men who live near airports have a greater risk of developing high blood pressure than those who live in quieter neighborhoods. “It is thought that aircraft noise causes stress problems when it interferes with people’s ability to think, relax or sleep, for example,” study organizer Dr. Mats Rosenlund of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm told Reuters Health. The study followed 2,000 men, who didnt have high blood pressure, for 10 years and found that the 20 percent of study subjects who lived in the noisiest area were 19 percent more likely to develop it. The study took into account lifestyle factors like obesity, exercise and eating habits. Rosenlund cautioned that the study does not prove that airplane noise causes high blood pressure but he did say it was consistent with other studies that draw a link between blood pressure and noise.
