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| Proforma Safety, LLC Proforma PSI…when performance counts. Quiet Please, Work in Progress Noise in the workplace has been shown to contribute to raising your blood pressure. University of Michigan recently conducted research which suggests working in loud places can raise blood pressure levels. In addition, a study published in the European Heart Journal -- Europe's leading cardiac journal -- studied more than 4,000 cardiac patients and linked increased risk of heart attacks to chronic noise. The findings of the University of Michigan study, published in the latest issue of Archives of Environmental Health, were based on a Midwest auto assembly plant. The study connected noise exposure with elevated levels of systolic and diastolic blood pressure and heart rate. The European study involved 32 hospitals in Berlin between 1998 and 2001, and examined the association between the annoyance that chronic noise triggers in people and its effect on heart attacks in men and women. The European team found that the general noise in the environment, like traffic or airplanes, affected both genders and increased the overall risk of a heart attack by nearly 50 percent for men and 75 percent for women. As people spend so much of their waking time at work, blood
pressure levels on the job are an important if affected by
factors such as noise, even if those levels decline after
outside of work. The understanding gained from studies is
that the body reacts to noise with a whole set of physiological
changes, such as increased levels of adrenaline and noradrenaline,
which are associated with increased blood pressure and inflammatory
responses implicated in heart disease and heart attacks.
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