Hurricane Katrina's "attack" on New Orleans actually tripled the number of heart attacks and heart attacks among city residents, and markedly increased the frequency of other heart and vascular health problems, doctors said at the annual meeting of the American Heart Association in New Orleans.
“After Hurricane Katrina destroyed our city, many cardiology departments complained that New Orleans had literally flooded them with complaints. We were called home with suspected heart attacks much more often than in the days before the storm. And so I asked my colleagues to check if this increase was a coincidence, or was it really related to Katrina,”said Anand Irimpen from Tulane University (USA).
Irimpen and his colleagues found that there is indeed a link between increased heart attacks and other heart problems and Hurricane Katrina by examining data collected by New Orleans' medical statistics services two years before, during and 10 years after the disaster.
In particular, the destruction of the city by the hurricane was statistically associated with a tripling in the number of heart attacks, an increase in the number of patients with coronary heart disease by 48%, people with high blood pressure by 81% and a number of other health problems. All these effects, according to scientists, persist today.
How could they arise? Irimpen emphasizes that they have not yet found a direct causal link between the hurricane and the increase in disease, but all these problems can be caused by the fact that Katrina has deprived many people of work and destroyed the infrastructure of New Orleans and Louisiana as a whole.
This could have caused many people to quit healthy lifestyles and develop bad habits such as overeating and smoking. The possibility of this is indicated by statistics showing that the number of smokers and diabetics has increased markedly in the city in recent years. Accordingly, avoiding unhealthy food and tobacco and promoting healthy lifestyles can help city residents and state officials get rid of Katrina's long-lasting "effects."
