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Brr! You're more likely to die of a heart-related problem in the winter, but it's not because of the cold, researchers say.
Winter can kill you. But it’s not the cold or the snow shoveling that will do you in. Whether you live in a typically hot climate like Arizona, or a chillier area like Massachusetts, you’re more likely to succumb to some form of cardiovascular disease during the winter months, researchers reported at the annual meeting of the American Heart Association Tuesday.
Compared to the summer season, people are 26 to 36 percent more likely to die in winter from a heart attack, a stroke, heart failure or some other circulatory disease, says the study’s lead author Dr. Bryan Schwartz, a cardiovascular research fellow at the Heart Institute at Good Samaritan Hospital in Los Angeles.
Schwartz and his co-author, Dr. Robert Kloner, director of research at the hospital, examined approximately 1.7 million death certificates from 2005 to 2008 from seven U.S. locations that ranged from hot to cold: Texas, Arizona’s Maricopa County, Georgia, California’s Los Angeles County, Washington, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts.
The researchers were surprised at what they found. No matter where the data were from, the pattern was the same: Many more deaths in the winter than in the summer.
Because low temperatures have often been linked with increased death rates, “we thought the winter peak would be more prominent in cold climates like Massachusetts,” says Schwartz, now a researcher at the University of New Mexico. “But the death rates were similar. That means that temperature is a small factor -- or not a factor at all.”
Then why is winter so deadly? The researchers are uncertain, but influenza and depression are possible causes. Flu season peaks in the winter, Schwartz points out, and during winter’s shorter days, people tend to feel more down and discouraged. They may exercise less and not be as careful about what they eat.
For example, “a patient who already has congestive heart failure might not be as adherent to a low-salt diet. That can be enough to promote fluid retention and worsening heart failure and eventually death.”
That makes sense to Dr. Lee Goldberg, medical director of the heart failure and cardiac transplant center at the University of Pennsylvania.
“People who are depressed are less likely to exercise and take their medications,” he says. “And they’re also more likely to cheat a bit on their diets. “
Depression doesn’t just impact lifestyle, Goldberg says. “When people are depressed there are chemical changes that can increase stress on the cardiovascular system.”
In other words, when it comes to your heart, winter is not the time to be careless.
“You need to take care of your heart 365 days a year,” Goldberg says. “You have to make time for it, regardless of what else is going on.”
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Leave a Comment:
I think they missed the boat on this one. Regardless of whether a person lives in Massachusetts or Texas, winter is colder than summer. If a person is acclimitized to a particular area, the difference in temperature can and probably is the deciding factor of the increased death rate during winter.
come on, you really don't think they thought of that?
Plus, los angeles's winter is rarely if ever cold.
The lower Vitamin D levels (studies show low D in bloodstream equates to higher chance of death if you have a heart attack) along with the toxins people line up to get injected via the flu shot that doesn't prevent you from getting the flu, make winter more dangerous. I agree....
Maybe it's low flying clouds? Is this what "Medical Science" has become, a guessing game, being fueled by wild guesses, and mathematical tests on populations picked at random? Where is the science? Where is the intelligence that is supposed to be fuelling the science? Is this the kind of research colleges are producing with all those billions they are stealing from their students? Today's medicine has become a liability almost as frequently as it has become a boon to its patients! In fact, if the costs continue to increase we might be better of without it in most cases; the population is suffering from over medication more than from disease. If people stopped getting hooked on prescription drugs, we all might live longer and healthier!
Maybe we should go back to the witch doctors, at least for non-surgical cases, they inspired faith in their patients, enough that the placebo effect worked, about just as effectively as half of today's medicines work!
Come on, sure, modern medicine has made important advances in surgical areas and understanding some of the functions of the human body, but all of this is fading into the background as the pseudo-science of population studies fueled by profit motivation are causing more problems than they are solving: vaccines for diseases that don't exist; diseases that don't exist created to make vaccines; medicines with worst side effects than the diseases they supposedly treat; addictions; overuse of antibiotics to the point of the loss of all usefulness due to resistant strains of microorganisms. We have taken the medicine out of medicine, in the insane search for profits, and in combination with a society that has poisoned itself with tobacco and addictive substances!
JAM the skeptic
I couldn't have said it better myself.
Examining death certificates will not provide the researchers with "time to treatment" information ... only what occured in the hospital after arrival.
The actions and time prior to the hospital are critical hence we have ancronyms like "S.A.M.P.L.E History" and terms line "The Golden Hour" or "The Platinum 10 Minutes" or the even better "Time to Balloon".
First Responder Care is the key to survival of a Heart Attack. Being a member of the National Yellow Dot Program is the first step everyone should take.
Hamby Hutcheson, National Yellow Dot Program Director
www.myyellowdots.com
The smart Traveler,If I can't advertise my business neither can you.I reported you after I looked into your program.
BS, followed by still more BS
Dear Cleaning Lady:
"S.A.M.P.L.E HISTORY"; "The Golden Hour"; "The Platinum 10 Minutes" and "Time to Balloon" are all public domain terms used by "First Responders" and every hospital triage in the USA. Where is the "advertisment" in that?
"The National Yellow Dot Program" is the name of U.S. Senate Bill #1731 introduced by U.S. Senator Joe Manchin, D, WV. That is a FREE program offered to anyone with a medical need. Where is the "advertisement" in that?
WWW.MYYELLOWDOTS.COM is an information site for all 50 States as to where one in need can go or who to contact for FREE YELLOW DOT KITS ... which I pay for out of my retirement income.
So you must be objecting to the fact that there are some ads and sponsors on those pages?
I wish everyone that reads your post would take the time to comment ... HERE ... so we can both see those comments.
Hamby Hutcheson, National Yellow Dot Program Director
There seems to be a lot of "stories"/"articles" that are no more informative at the beggining or the end. This is one of these. This was complete waste of a good click.
Might be something to that article.
how can they overlook all the lovely luscious fat-calorie-cholesterol-laden HOLIDAY GOODIES!?!?! My mom's lemon bread and shortbread dough, plus the scotch eggs I make on Christmas morning... I'm probably heading for a heart attack every January! oh but I love it too much. I'll die of something eventually and I'd rather enjoy myself on my way out.
I wonder if they looked into the relationship: Does having less sunlight in winter means less outdoor activities (or less activity overall) and is that the reason for more winter heart attacks. I know I am more active outside doing yard work and exercising when there is more sunlight and better weather. When it is dark cold and rainy outside I am not really motivated to do big outdoor projects or go on a multi-mile hike. Lack of activity would account for the increase in depression which in turn would decrease resistance to feel good foods. Makes sense to me anyway.
I would be more interested to see if people that use the artificial sunlight lamps have less instance of heart attacks during the winter.
I was thinking about sunshine too, but in a more direct sense - less sunlight = less Vitamin D, which has been shown to be connected to many health issues. No matter where you live, the sun shines less in winter.
At least in the winter the body keeps longer.
Phase of the moon, barometric pressure, too much pepperoni on the pizza, wearing too much cologne or perfume -- all have been blamed for causing heart attacks and strokes. Unless you catch one starting, nobody can predict them, just like earthquakes.
It's only been known for 80 years that the winter peak in heart disease deaths is associated with the seasonal increase in respiratory diseases and influenza. (Influenza epidemics and acute respiratory disease activity are associated with a surge in autopsy-confirmed coronary heart disease death: results from 8 years of autopsies in 34,892 subjects. Madjid M, et al. Eur Heart J. 2007 May;28(10):1205-10.)
http://eurheartj.oxfordjournals.org/content/28/10/1205.long
The fact that this obvious answer doesn't even occur to them is proof of the denialism and pervasive anti-germ theory bias in the health establishment.