Air pollution, traffic and cocaine triggers heart attack

What factors trigger myocardial infarction? The issue has a team of researchers from Belgium collected in a study presented in the Lancet. The authors have compiled data from 36 different epidemiological studies where data were available, the trigger for heart attacks as non-fatal.

The study is cocaine the most dangerous factor in terms that trigger heart attacks. This is followed by eating a big meal and smoking marijuana. Getting angry, exposed to air pollution, travel by car or bus, and to wear yourself out physically are all factors further down on the danger list. Important to note is that the risk for an individual to suffer a heart attack which may be related to each factor is small. On a population basis, it may move on much larger numbers. Few people are exposed to cocaine, far more to air pollution. A statement that says something about how each factor is weighed together on a population basis is how many heart attacks that could be avoided given that a particular factor were eliminated entirely.

The list is topped by the traffic. If no one used the car, motorcycle, bicycle or public transportation would be 7.4 percent of heart attacks avoided, according to the study. Next comes physical exhaustion. If no one tried very hard physically to 6.2 percent of heart attacks are avoided. How many people would suffer from diabetes and therefore increase their risk of heart attack are not presented. Alcohol and - somewhat surprisingly - the coffee is in third place. The number of attacks would fall by 5 percent if no one drank alcohol, and by 5 percent if no one drank coffee. If people never got angry was 3.1 of infarctions avoided. If they did not have sex or taking cocaine, it would result in 2.2 and 0.9 percent of the infarction was avoided.

To calculate how many heart attacks avoided if one completely eliminates such as physical exhaustion or anger may seem irrelevant. But the study provides some thought-provoking results. The authors highlight in particular the air pollutants. If the particle concentrations in the air can be reduced by 30 micrograms per cubic meter would be 4.8 percent of all non-fatal heart attacks avoided, the authors calculate. The eradication of air pollutants would not only increase the quality of human life and welfare, but also protect against heart attacks, they write.