Living near major roads may increase risk of sudden cardiac death in women

I have seen people jogging beside busy highways. Really counter-productive.

http://newsroom.heart.org/news/living-near-major-roads-may-increase-risk-of-sudden-cardiac-death-in-women?preview=8c3d

Oct. 13, 2014 — Living close to a major road may increase women’s risk of dying from sudden cardiac death, according to new research in the American Heart Association journal Circulation.

“It’s important for healthcare providers to recognize that environmental exposures may be under-appreciated risk factors for diseases such as sudden cardiac death and fatal coronary heart disease,” said Jaime E. Hart, Sc.D., study lead author and an instructor in medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts. “On a population level, living near a major roadway was as important a risk factor as smoking, diet or obesity.”

While researchers previously found a modest increase in coronary heart disease risk among people who live near major roadways, the new study may be the first to examine the impact of roadway proximity to the risk of sudden cardiac death. Researchers note that roadway proximity could be a marker for exposure to air pollution.

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