gms | German Medical Science

Introduction: Left ventricular Hypertrophy (LVH) represents a predictor for cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. Hypertension is key risk factor for LVH. Multiple evidence suggests that stress is associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular diseases. It is generally accepted that noise has the potential to act as a non-specific stressor. Further studies reported that noise exposure can induce hypertension. While there are various studies on the association between exposure to noise and hypertension, the question on a possible association between exposure to noise and LVH has not attracted sufficient attention yet. The objective of the present study was to investigate the association between exposure to noise and LVH.

Materials and methods: From the Study of Health in Pomerania (SHIP) a total number of 1946 subjects aged 45 years or older were included in the analysis. Echocardiography was performed and LVM was calculated. LVH was defined as a LVM ≥294g for men and ≥198g for women. Exposure to noise was assessed by self-report. Odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were calculated using logistic regression.

Results: Among the study population, 18.2% (n=265) of the women and 7.4% (n=108) of the men had LVH. After adjustment for confounding factors regression analyses revealed an association between exposure to noise and LVH. Subjects with occupational noise exposure over 19 years had higher odds [1.49 (95%-CI 1.0 - 2.2)] for LVH compared to subjects without occupational noise exposure.

Discussion: There is an association between occupational noise exposure and LVH. Such an association between noise and cardiovascular disease is biologically plausible, and etiologic models of stress and heart disease have been proposed and extended to noise and heart disease. Our results are in line another study which found an association between subjective work noise exposure and the risk of myocardial infarction.