Dirty air triggers more heart attacks than cocaine

Dirty air triggers more heart attacks than cocaine

Polluted air should be taken more seriously.
Air pollution triggers more heart attacks than using cocaine and poses as high a risk of sparking a heart attack as alcohol, coffee and physical exertion, scientists said on Thursday.

Sex, anger, marijuana use and chest or respiratory infections and can also trigger heart attacks to different extents, the researchers said, but air pollution, particularly in heavy traffic, is the major culprit.

The findings, published in The Lancet journal, suggest population-wide factors like polluted air should be taken more seriously when looking at heart risks, and should be put into context beside higher but relatively rarer risks like drug use.

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A report published late last year found that air pollution in many major cities in Asia exceeds the WHO's air quality guidelines and that toxic cocktails of pollutants results in more than 530,000 premature deaths a year.


http://www.moneyweb.co.za/mw/view/mw/en/page295047?oid=531725&sn=2009+Detail#

since most of us stop indulging before we reach the age where a coronary was a serious possibility