For those who do not know the real essence of Christmas, there is a possible risk of heart attack due to unnecessary emotional attachment to the celebration which ironically does not have a Christian foundations. 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
started.
