Christmas Raises Risk Of Heart Attack - Researchers

As the yuletide season approaches, researchers in Sweden have alerted the world community about numerous events around Christmas and New Year, saying that acute experience of anger, anxiety, sadness, grief, and stressful activities associated with Christmas increase the risk of a heart attack.

According to the findings of an observational study published in the ‘British Medical Journal (BMJ), a person’s risk of heart attack spikes during most holidays and peaks at around 10p.m on Christmas Eve. Compared with days in the two weeks before and after Christmas, the risk of heart attack was 15 per cent higher on Christmas Day and 37 per cent higher on Christmas Eve. Similarly, the study found a 20 per cent increased risk for heart attack on New Year’s Day, and a 12 per cent increase during Midsummer, a mid-June Swedish holiday with vaguely pagan overtones during which the drinking and dancing never stop and the sun never sets.

The senior author, Dr. David Erlinge, who is head of the Cardiology Department at Lund University in Sweden, said that the holidays have special stresses — travel, difficult relatives or friends, complicated preparations for guests, extra physical activity and, of course, eating and drinking too much. According to Erlinge: “Every heart attack for 16 years in the whole country is in it. It’s reality,”, he said, adding that it was a big study, not a sample.

The scientists believe Christmas Eve (and other holidays) are times when people experience emotional stress, and that likely affects heart health — although they are only speculating. “We do not know for sure but emotional distress with acute experience of anger, anxiety, sadness, grief, and stress increases the risk of a heart attack. Excessive food intake, alcohol, long distance traveling may also increase the risk,” Erlinge said. The researchers said people could avoid unnecessary stress, take care of elderly relatives with risk of heart problems and avoid excessive eating and drinking during this period. The research team studied 283,014 heart attacks between 1998 and 2013 that were documented in a registry that included the date and time when symptoms have started.