Researchers have found that air pollution can cause heart attacks just as much as individual risk factors such as physical exertion, coffee and alcohol apart from anger, positive emotions, cocaine, sexual activity, respiratory infection and the use of marijuana that are also factors that can lead to a heart attack as well.
According to a joint study conducted by the Catholic University of Leuven and Hasselt University that was published on Article First Online, the authors collated data from 36 different studies with a mean participant age of 72 years for respiratory infections as well as 44 years for cocaine and marijuana use.
The findings revealed that cocaine increased the risk of triggering a heart attack by 23 times whereas alcohol and coffee increased the risk by 3 and 1.5 times. In comparison, air pollution only increased the risk of triggering a heart attack by 5 % but due to the fact that it affects more people than the aforementioned factors, it wasn’t hard to come to a conclusion that outdoor pollution (which also took into account the factor of passive smoking) is the single largest factor which causes heart attacks these days.
The results of this study have evoked a convincing response from public health officials that it isn’t in their best interests to rule out small factors that cause heart attacks since they affect almost everyone in the community as opposed to the other factors. And if there’s anything that is important, it is the improvement of the air that we breathe that is vital to reduction of heart disease rates as well as other diseases at the general population level.