Scientists Now Know The Day Of The Week You’ll Most Likely Have A Heart Attack
Research shows heart attacks are most likely to occur during the winter on a Monday.
Everyone hates Mondays. Apparently, so do our bodies. A report from Science Alert reveals that Monday is the most common day for people to have heart attacks. Though the start of the work week proves to be the most dangerous time for severe cardiovascular health complications, scientists are still curious as to why.
The finger was pointed at Mondays as the result of an analysis of more than 10,000 heart attack patients in Ireland and Northern Ireland between 2013 and 2018. The patients had specifically suffered an ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction, or STEMI, a severe heart attack resulting from a major coronary artery clog.
The analysis concluded that Mondays brought with them a 13 percent greater risk of a heart attack. The risk on Sundays was also high, while Thursdays were low, but the kick-off to the work week was by far the most anomalous day.
Monday is clearly a culprit in this scenario, but scientists have not determined why that is the case. The first reason that likely comes to mind is stress, as the start of the week often brings with it more anxiety and tension than any other day of the week.
That was the answer put forth by a Swedish study conducted in 2017. Those researchers also found Monday to be the most likely day for a heart attack, while winter was the most likely season. Others suggest there may be more to the story.
Some scientists believe heart attack risk is linked with circadian rhythms. These are the rhythms natural body processes follow in order to tune our bodies to a 24-hour day. Factors linked to having a heart attack, such as blood pressure, follow a circadian rhythm.
When sleep cycles are interrupted, as they often are on weekends and in winter months when the sun sets early, cardiovascular health can often be impacted in a negative way. The toll can add up if these patterns continue throughout a person’s life.
Whether it’s due to interrupted sleep thanks to the Sunday Scaries or simply the place of Monday in the cycle of life, the beginning of the week proves to be the most opportune time for cardiovascular disease to strike. Knowing that can give people at risk of a heart attack and the doctors who treat them a leg up on these often sudden and traumatic experiences.
Heart health should be an everyday focus; an inordinate number of STEMIs may happen on Mondays, but a heart attack can strike at any time. In the case of a STEMI, emergency action is often required to open the blocked artery back up.
Now that scientists have even more evidence to support the correlation between Mondays and heart attacks, the task of figuring out why becomes paramount. Stress and circadian rhythms are the only hypotheses at this stage in the research. As scientists discover what it is about Mondays that increases the risk of a heart attack, doctors and patients can take steps to prevent these deadly complications from ever occurring.
