Literature Review: Effects of Environmental Noise on the Cardiovascular Health

The adverse effects of environmental noise on human health have been recognized for more than a century. In particular, during the last decades, the vast majority of studies have focused on the detrimental role of noise in the induction of cardiovascular diseases. In this study, we aim to conduct a literature review on chronic stress responses induced by environmental noise, the risk of cardiovascular disease, and the underlying pathophysiological mechanisms. We retrieved the publications from the PubMed database by searching for "noise AND cardiovascular." By reviewing these publications in this study, we will first describe the epidemiologic research on cardiovascular risk factors and diseases induced by environmental noise, then discuss the mechanism(s) underlying these noise-induced cardiovascular impairments based on clinical and experimental studies, and finally evaluate the strategies to mitigate the effects of noise on cardiovascular health. We also evaluate the studies that describe the effects of noise level and noise intermittency, such as train noise, on cardiovascular health. We discuss whether environmental noise should be part of a risk factor profile for cardiovascular disease and how we should manage it, and assess the strategy that can be used to mitigate the noise-induced physiopathological changes. Furthermore, we briefly describe the effects of air pollution and heavy metals on cardiovascular health and discuss the relevance of these environmental stressors in the noise-induced cardiovascular disease. Our studies suggest that future studies are warranted to investigate new strategies that can mitigate the adverse effects of environmental noise on cardiovascular health.