We now interrupt the “fa la la la la” with a bit of lifesaving
buzzkill: Heart-related deaths spike during Christmas. It’s a holiday
thing, btw, not a cold-weather thing.
That’s the eye-opening, if Grinch-y, finding from Australian researchers published on Thursday in the Journal of the American Heart Association.
Investigators analyzed death trends over a 25-year period in New
Zealand, where Christmas falls during the summer and death rates are
usually at a seasonal low. Between 1988 and 2013, there were 738,409
deaths — 197,109 were cardiac deaths. Investigators found a 4.2%
increase in heart-related deaths outside a hospital from Dec. 25–Jan. 7.
Why the uptick? There are “two separate groups in the population who
make up the deaths associated with the ‘Christmas effect,’” author Josh
Knight, a research fellow at the University of Melbourne, told the Daily
News. That includes individuals who are delayed — possibly because of
distance or access issues — in seeking treatment over the holiday period
and end up having a cardiac event that would otherwise be non-fatal.
Another group: high-risk people want to leave hospital to spend
Christmas with their family. “There is anecdotal evidence of people
‘hanging on’ till major events but the scientific literature is divided
about the reality,” said Knight.
Further research is needed to get to the bottom of the merry-time mortality boost. But a corresponding “Christmas effect” has previously been found in the U.S. So deck the halls, and let’s be careful out there.
No comments:
Post a Comment