Environmental factors are an important cause of poor health globally.
Hypertension is known to occur due to complex interactions between adverse lifestyles
and environmental factors on a background of polygenic inheritance. Although
pharmacological interventions have taken a prominent place, environmental factors and
interventions have generally received less consideration. The short-term and long term
impact of several environmental factors on blood pressure changes such as cold
ambient temperature, exposure to loud noise, air pollution, high altitude, certain
organic pollutants, and heavy metals have been recently reported. In this chapter, the
current evidence on the effect of such environmental risk factors on blood pressure
with its pathophysiological mechanisms and clinical relevance have been described in
detail. As some of these effects are clinically relevant, clinicians, patients with
hypertension or cardiovascular disease and individuals at high risk for cardiovascular
disease would need to be aware of these environmental factors. Furthermore, close
attention to monitoring blood pressure during such exposures is necessary and in
individuals with hypertension, treatment schedules may need adjustment to ensure
more optimal blood pressure control.
Keywords: Air pollution, Aircraft noise, Ambient temperature, Blood pressure,
Cardiovascular diseases, Diastolic hypertension, Environmental factors, Heart
disease, Heavy metals, High altitude, Hypertension, Lifestyle, Loud noise, Noise
pollution, Organic pollutants, Pathophysiology, Risk factors, Sleep apnoea,
Systolic hypertension, Work environment.
