WEDNESDAY, Jan. 8, 2025 (HealthDay News) -- Folks who live near airports are used to the regular roar of jet airliners taking off and landing.

But they likely don’t know that all this ruckus could be harming their heart health, a new study says.

People exposed to high aircraft noise levels could be at greater risk of poor heart function, increasing their risk of heart attack, stroke and irregular heartbeat, researchers report.

Residents living near noisy airports had 10% to 20% worse heart structure and function, compared to people who moved to get away from the aircraft noise, according to results published Jan. 8 in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

Specifically, their heart muscle had grown stiffer and thicker over time, making the organ less efficient at pumping blood, researchers said.

These sort of changes to the heart can quadruple a person’s risk of heart attack or stroke, researchers estimated.

“Our findings add to a growing body of evidence that aircraft noise can adversely affect heart health and our health more generally,” senior researcher Dr. Gaby Captur, a senior clinical lecturer at the University College London Institute of Cardiovascular Science, said in a news release from the school.

For the study, researchers analyzed data from the long-term UK Biobank health research project, involving more than 3,600 people who lived near Heathrow, Gatwick, Birmingham or Manchester airports.

The team compared MRI scans taken of the participants’ hearts with aircraft noise estimates produced by the UK Civil Aviation Authority.

High aircraft noise was defined as more than 50 decibels on average during daylight hours and 45 decibels at night, researchers said. That’s higher than the 45 daytime decibels and 40 nighttime decibels recommended by the World Health Organization.

Risk of hearing loss starts around 70 decibels, according to the National Council on Aging. A normal conversation registers around 60 decibels, a “quiet” dishwasher at 50 decibels, and average room noise at 40 decibels.

Researchers suspected that the constant din from a nearby airport might have a cumulative effect on the health of nearby residents.

They found that people exposed to loud aircraft noise had 7% increased heart mass and 4% greater heart thickness, as well as impaired heart function.

The team then compared these observations to a larger sample of nearly 21,400 MRI heart scans, to see how structural changes related to aircraft noise might affect heart health.

Overall, a person with the sort of heart structure changes associated with airplane noise has a fourfold greater risk of heart attack, stroke, or irregular heart rhythm, researchers concluded.

“We are concerned that the type of abnormalities we saw with night-time aircraft noise might result in increased risk of heart problems and stroke,” researcher Anna Hansell, director of the Center for Environmental Health and Sustainability at the University of Leicester (UCL), said in a news release. 

“Aircraft noise at night has been shown to affect sleep quality and this may be an important factor affecting health,” Hansell added.

Environmental noise also can trigger over-activation of people’s “fight-or-flight” stress response, causing blood pressure to rise and digestion to slow, researchers said. Release of the stress hormone cortisol can increase appetite and cause weight gain.

“This innovative study reveals the potential invisible impact for those living close to some of our biggest travel hubs,” James Leiper, associate medical director at the British Heart Foundation, said in the UCL news release.

“While observational studies like this can’t prove cause and effect, these findings add to previous research showing the damaging impact of noise pollution on our heart health,” added Leiper, whose foundation funded the research but who was not directly involved in the study. “Further research will be needed to investigate the longer-term effects of aircraft noise on the health of those with the highest exposure.”

More information

Harvard Medical School has more on noise and health.

SOURCE: University College London, news release, Jan. 8, 2025