Doctors from Health and Social Care Belfast and the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland have discovered that the most serious heart attacks occur more frequently. Monday.
Their study, presented today at the British Cardiovascular Society conference in Manchester, found a sharp rise in the incidence of ST-segment elevation myocardial infarctions at the start of the working week, and whether this is the cause of this trend is not clear says Jack Lavan, cardiologist at Cork University Hospital. Doctors assume that “it has to do with the body’s circadian rhythm, which is our natural sleep cycle,” told RTÉ, involved in the investigation.
STEMI is the most dangerous heart attack that occurs when a coronary artery is blocked. In the framework of the study, the data of 10,528 patients who were hospitalized on the island of Ireland between 2013 and 2018 with this type of myocardial infarction were analysed, 7,112 of them in Ireland and 3416 in Northern Ireland.
The new data confirms what has already been described in previous studies regarding Monday’s higher incidence of heart attacks, a phenomenon that also applies to strokes.
Laffan told Morning Ireland that the most likely time to experience cardiovascular disease is between 6 and 10am. “Other studies have found a higher rate of heart attacks in the days after the clocks advance in the spring,” he added.
According to the doctor, the “strong statistical association between the beginning of the workweek and the incidence of hypertensive myocardial infarction,” identified by the researchers, “remains intriguing” and is thought to be caused by multiple factors.
“However, based on what we know from previous studies, it is reasonable to hypothesize a circadian component,” concluded Levan.
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