Invisible killer in all our lives

We are surrounded by an invisible killer. One is so common that we barely notice it shortening our lives.

It is causing heart attacks, type 2 diabetes and studies and now connects it to dementia.

What do you think it could be?

The answer is noise – and its effect on the human body is beyond the loss of hearing.

“This is a public health crisis, we have been highlighted a large number of people in his everyday life,” Saint George, called Professor Charlotte Clarke of the University of London.

This is just a crisis that we do not talk about.

So I am investigating that when the noise becomes dangerous, they talk to those whose health is suffering and is seeing whether there is a way to overcome our noise world.

I started a meeting with Professor Clarke. We are going to see how my body reacts to noise and I have been thrown out with a device that looks like a chunky smartwatch.

It is going to measure my heart rate and how much sweat my skin is.

If you have some headphones, you can also join it. Think about how these five sounds make you feel.

I think Jhanjhari Dhaka is actually a traffic noise from Bangladesh, with the title of the world’s lowest city. I immediately feel that I am in a ginman, stressful traffic jam.

And the sensors are raising my movement – my heart shoots and my skin is sweating more.

“Really good evidence that traffic noise affects your heart health,” says Professor Clarke, because the next sound is ready.

Only joyful sounds of the playground have a calm effect on my body. In the initial hours, dogs bark and the neighbor’s party reacts negatively.

But why is the sound changing my body?

“You have an emotional response to sound,” Prof. Clarke says.

The sound is detected by the ear and passed on the brain and one region – amigdala – emotional evaluation.

It is part of the body’s fight-or-objection reaction that has developed to help us react quickly to the sounds like the hunter that crashes through bushes.

“So your heart rate increases, your nervous system starts kicking and you release stress hormones,” Prof Clarke tells me.

All this is good in an emergency, but over time it causes damage.

“If you are exposed for many years, your body’s response is like all the time, it enhances your risk of developing things like heart attacks, hypertension, stroke and type 2 diabetes,” Prof. Clarke is called.

This happens as long as we are sleeping fast. You may think that you are suited to noise. I felt that I did when I lived in rent near an airport. But biology tells a different story.

“You never close your ears, when you are sleeping, you’re still listening. So those reactions, as your heart rate is rising, is happening, when you are sleeping,” says Professor Clarke.

The noise is unwanted sound. Transport – Traffic, trains and airplanes – are a major source, but therefore a good time for us. One person’s great party is insufficient noise of another.

I meet cocoa in its fourth floor flat in Barcelona, ​​Spain’s historic Villa Day Grosia region.

There is a bag of freshly chosen lemon tied to his door gifted by a neighbor, his fridge has a tortilla cooked by the other and he provides me with fancy cakes made by a third neighbor, which trains in Petisari.

From the balcony, you can see the city’s famous Cathedral, Sagarda Familia. It is easy to see why Coco is in love with living here, but it comes at a very large price and she wonders that she will be forced to leave.

“It’s extremely noise … it’s a 24-hour noise,” she tells me. The owners have a dog park that they run their readers, which is a bark on “2, 3, 4, 5am” and the courtyard is a public space that is used from children’s birthday parties to everything for all day concerts.

She takes out her phone and plays the recording of music, so it gets blasted very loudly.

His house should be a refuge from the stress of work, but the noise “brings frustration, I feel like crying”.

He is “been hospitalized twice with chest pain” and “exactly” thinks noise is causing stress, causing damage to his health. “There is a physical change that I think, it does something for your body, for some,” she says.

Researcher Dr. According to Maria Forceter, there are 300 heart attacks and 30 deaths in Barcelona in Barcelona, ​​an estimated 300 heart attacks and 30 deaths that have reviewed the noise for the World Health Organization.

Across Europe The noise is associated with millions of cases of serious noise with 12,000 early deaths in a year -as well as serious noise that can affect mental health.

I in a cafe Dr. I meet the fourse which is different from one of the busiest roads in Barcelona by a small park. My sound meter says that noise from distant traffic here is more than 60 decibels.

We can easily chat on noise without raising our voice, but it is already an unhealthy volume.

The significant number for heart health is 53 decibels, she tells me, and the more you go more than health risks.

“It means 53 that we need to live in a calm environment,” Dr. Fourses says.

And it is just in the day, we need even less levels for sleep. “We need disinterest at night,” she says.

Although it is not only about the volume, how much disruptive sound is and how much control you have on it affects our emotional response to noise.

Dr. Fourseter argues that the health effect of noise is “at the level of air pollution”, but it is very difficult to understand.

“We are used to understand that chemicals can affect health and they are toxic, but it is not so straight to understand that a physical factors, such as noise, affect our health beyond our hearing,” she says.

A loud party can have fun that makes life live and someone else’s unbearable noise.

The sound of traffic has the most impact on health because so many people are in touch with it. But there is also the sound of traffic to work, shop and take children to school. Taking noise means to say people to live their lives differently – which creates their problems.

Dr. of Barcelona Institute for Global Health. Natalie Mueller, takes me to a walk around the city center. We start on a busy road-My sound meter watches in more than 80 decibels-and we go to a calm tree-interested Avenue where the noise is below in the 50s.

But there is something different about this road – it used to be a busy road, but the space was given to pedestrians, cafes and gardens. I can see the ghost of an old cross roads from the size of flowers. Vehicles can still come here, just slowly.

Remember in the laboratory first, we found that some sounds can calm the body.

“It is not completely silent, but it is a different notion about sound and noise,” Dr. Muller says. My heart rate decreased and I stopped sweating.

The initial plan was to create more than 500 such areas, called “Superblock” – pedestrian -friendly areas were created by combining several city blocks together.

Dr. Muller Demonstrated research The city is estimated to have a 5–10% decrease in noise, which prevents “150 premature deaths” from the noise alone every year. And this will be the “tip of iceberg” of health benefits.

But in fact only six superblocks were made at any time. The city council refused to comment.

However, the noise threats continue. Urbanization is putting more people in noise cities.

Dhaka, Bangladesh, is one of the fastest growing megasity in the world. It has brought more traffic and has given the city a Cacophone Soundtrack to honor horn.

Artist Momina Raman Royal earned a label of “Lone Hero” as her silent protest has focused on the city’s noise problem.

Each day for about 10 minutes, he stands at a couple’s intersection of busy roads with a large yellow placard, accusing drivers, who honor their horns with vigor to create a massive fuss.

He took the mission after his daughter’s birth. “I want to honor not only from Dhaka, but also from Bangladesh,” he says.

“If you look at birds or trees or rivers, no one makes noise without humans, so humans are responsible.”

But there is also the beginning of political action here. Syeda Rizwana Hasan, Environment Advisor and Minister of the Bangladesh government, told me that she was “very worried” about the health effects of noise.

There is a crack at honoring the horns to bring the noise level down – with a awareness campaign and strict enforcement of existing laws.

He said: “It is impossible to get it in a year or two years, but I think it is possible to ensure that the city is less noise, and when people feel, they feel better when it is less noise, I am sure that their habit will also change.”

The noise solution can be difficult, complex and challenging to solve.

What I am left is a new appreciation to find some places in our life, because just to avoid noise because Dr. of Bangladesh University professionals. In the words of Masur Abdul Quadar, it is “a silent killer and a slow poison”.

Loud was produced by Gerry Holt. Additional reporting from Bangladesh by Salman Saeed