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Daylight Saving Time Linked To Heart Attacks

Posted by samzenpus on from the sleep-or-die dept.

jones_supa (887896) writes "Switching over to daylight saving time, and hence losing one hour of sleep, raised the risk of having a heart attack the following Monday by 25 percent, compared to other Mondays during the year, according to a new U.S. study released on Saturday. By contrast, heart attack risk fell 21 percent later in the year, on the Tuesday after the clock was returned to standard time, and people got the extra hour of sleep. The not-so-subtle impact of moving the clock forward and backward was seen in a comparison of hospital admissions from a database of non-federal Michigan hospitals. It examined admissions before the start of daylight saving time and the Monday immediately after, for four consecutive years. Researchers cited limitations to the study, noting it was restricted to one state and heart attacks that required artery-opening procedures, such as stents."

8 of 240 comments (clear)

  1. Sleep -1? by eneville · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Go to bed an hour earlier then?

    --
    Why UNIX?
    1. Re:Sleep -1? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      My cat is not an artificial, human, made clock, you insensitive clod.

    2. Re:Sleep -1? by ColdWetDog · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Yes, and the problem with this analysis is that these folks were probably ** going ** to have a heart attack soon - perhaps next week, this is just one big jolt that, as you note, happens at the same time so pops up out of the noise.

      Even if you let everybody sleep on the same scale, you're not really going to change the rate of MI's all that much by killing DST. If you let Americans sleep MORE on the average, then you might see the rate drop. But then they would live longer and cost more, so you don't necessarily want to do that....

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      Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
    3. Re:Sleep -1? by Charliemopps · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You don't have kids.

  2. A simpler cure by petes_PoV · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Surely this isn't linked to the time people go to bed and rise, but the amount of sleep they get.

    So to reduce the risk of a heart attack, just get more sleep.

    --
    politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
    1. Re:A simpler cure by Zontar+The+Mindless · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I think it's heaps simpler not to fuck with the clocks, and to let people make their own decisions about bedtimes.

      --
      Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
    2. Re:A simpler cure by fremsley471 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Yes please, I will have it with milk before I lay my head down for unclouded dreams of delight.

      95% of all food/environment-related health research misses the elephant in the room; the hard to quantify effects of personal stress. This study shows that stress, by variation to routine, kills people. My remarks were there to illustrate that sleep cycles driven by routine are unnatural because we make them so.

      It's always galling when the media focus on rich, busy people, on how stressful their lives are, It's the poor bastards at the bottom who are most stressed and have the worst health outcomes. Any research that draws attention to this is to be welcomed.

  3. Re:Circadian Rhythm by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Little wonder there are so many truckers having heart attacks that end their careers (or even their lives)!

    It could also be because they sit on their butts all day and eat lots of junk food.