Another Costly Effect Of Traffic Jams

[jeffrey]

Not only is sitting in traffic jams costly in wasted gas and time, it can also kill you. Researchers in Germany have found that people caught in traffic jams have a three times greater chance of suffering a heart attack. The study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, found that nearly one out of 12 heart attacks were linked to traffic.

The study followed 690 individuals who survived at least 24 hours after the onset of their heart attack. By studying their activities, the researchers were able to draw a connection between the heart attacks and the exposure to traffic.

They concluded that the time an individual spends in traffic increases the liklihood of a heart attack. This logically infers that spending time in traffic jams will increase your medical costs and gives you yet another financial reason to wake up an hour or two earlier to commute to work rather than in the heart of the morning and evening rush hours.