Loud and clear: Noise hurts health, mind

Most Indians are noisy by nature. Be it announcing good news, leading a procession through the city, celebrating a marriage or a religious festival or even just chattering with a group of friends, we like to be heard loud and clear. The pollution created in the process is a health hazard having impact on everything -from brain to heart. From the cacophonous noise of peak-hour traffic to the deafening sound of planes taking off several kilometres away , the sound of hand-blender to the hum of the washing machine at…

Read More

Coffee impedes hearing recovery from noise: Study

Coffee lovers who like to attend rock music concerts or work at airports should be cautious as a recent study indicates that caffeine has a serious impact on hearing. According to a research by the McGill University in Canada, regular caffeine consumption can greatly impede hearing recovery from loud noise, even making the damage permanent, Xinhua news agency reported. “When the ear is exposed to loud noise, it can suffer from a temporary hearing reduction, also called auditory temporary threshold shift. This disorder is usually reversible in the first 72…

Read More

Traffic Noise Ups Heart Attack Risk

PhotoCredit:istock Living near the highway could cost your heart dear as researchers have found that risk of heart attack goes up with the amount of traffic noise to which you are exposed. The increase in risk – though slight – is greatest with road and rail traffic noise, less with aircraft noise, researchers said. For the study Andreas Seidler from Germany’s Dresden University of Technology and his co-authors evaluated information from statutory health insurers on over a million Germans over the age of 40. In this case-control study of secondary…

Read More