Dance Music/Heavy Metal can cause collapsed lungs...

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Found this interesting...

http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s1203094.htm

Dance music can make your lungs collapse

Catriona Purcell ABC Science Online

Tuesday, 21 September 2004

Dance music, and other loud music, has been linked to a lung condition that can send you to the emergency department (Image: iStockphoto)

Dance music can make your lungs collapse even if you have no obvious health problems, say European researchers.

They say loud music, like dance or heavy metal music, can trigger a condition known as spontaneous pneumothorax, where air can leak out of the lungs into the surrounding cavity.

Young, tall people who smoke are particularly at risk of the condition, which leaves you breathless and with chest pain.

But Dr Marc Noppen from the Academic Hospital AZ-ZUB in Brussels, Belgium, and his colleagues said their study was the first report of loud music as a trigger.

Three of the patients were next to speakers at a rock concert or nightclub when the pneumothorax occurred. The fourth was in his car, which had 1000-watt bass box speakers.

The researchers outlined the cases recently in the journal Thorax.

When a pneumothorax occurs there is an abnormal build-up of air in the space around the lungs that causes the lung to collapse. Symptoms include breathlessness and chest pain on the affected side.

Large explosions have been known to cause lung damage because of the change in environmental air pressure around the lungs.

But Noppen suggested loud music produces a series of smaller "repetitive blasts" resulting in lung collapse.

The researchers also suspected the repetitive booming bass frequency sound waves that vibrate through the body can cause the lungs to vibrate, tear and leak air into the pleural cavity.

Underlying risk factors

Australian respiratory specialist Dr Christine Jenkins from the Woolcock Institute of Medical Research in Sydney said the report was interesting but not conclusive.

"We know for example that high-frequency, high-energy noise such as you get on building sites can cause ear damage," she said. "But this is talking about the effects of low-frequency, high-energy sound characteristic of the type of rock music they were listening to."

It was important to note that all the patients in the study had risk factors for pneumothorax, Jenkins said.

All were tall, thin young males in their late teens and early 20s, and three were heavy smokers.

Two had medical histories that suggested connective tissue disorders, which may also weaken their lung tissue and make it susceptible to damage, she said.

Holding your breath while twisting or straining to lift a heavy weight could also bring on a spontaneous pneumothorax, she said.

"It could be a combination of factors including a predisposition to pneumothorax and an environmental insult such as loud noise may be a cause," she said.