Streetsblog.net

Here at Hard Drive, we want our readers to keep on truckin', bikin' and busin'. So, anyone with heart problems and a high-stress commute should take a hard at look at a new German study showing that traffic jams can triple your chances of a heart attack within an hour.

German researchers reported the findings at the American Heart Association's 49th Annual Conference on Cardiovascular Disease Epidemiology and Prevention last week.

They also observed small but statistically significant increases in the chance that a heart attack occurred within six hours after exposure to traffic.

So, people with elevated risks of a heart attacks should think about abandoning their cars for a bus or a bike, right?

Well, maybe. Maybe not. Riding your bike in traffic, or riding on the bus -- in fact, any exposure to traffic -- threatens your heart, according to the study of more than 1,400 Germans who had heart attacks between 1999 and 2003.

"Overall, time spent in any mode of transportation in traffic was associated with a 3.2 times higher risk than time spent away from this trigger," the study says.

Interestingly, the study found that exposure to traffic had the greatest effect on women, elderly males, the unemployed, and those with a history of angina.

The researchers didn't try to pinpoint the reasons for the increased risks, but stress is a suspect. Another one: the exhaust and air pollution coming from other cars, the authors said.