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Daylight Saving Time Linked To Heart Attacks
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."
Go to bed an hour earlier then?
Why UNIX?
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
I thought daylight saving time was linked to my clock.
So how would you feel if your wife/child/parent/friend got run over by a sleep-deprived driver on the morning after DST? Fact is, DST increases human mortality and energy usage. Is it worth the increase of consumer economy it generates?
If this is what happens once a year, imagine what happens to people who have their schedules changed at random (like a truck driver), or someone on "swing shifts"!
Little wonder there are so many truckers having heart attacks that end their careers (or even their lives)!
And to think I worked for a company that the VP actually said to me (with a witness from their own Drivers' Advisory Board present, no less):
"Circadian rhythm is a luxury we cannot afford in this industry."
I'd name names, but I might want to return to driving one day, and it could get me Blackballed ;)
AFAIK, the only reason for this stupid clock change thing is because they don't want children waiting for buses in morning darkness.
In other news, from what I remember hearing, youth crimes are largely committed between 3PM and 5PM. They get home from school, parents are still at work, and they get into trouble.
Fix both problems: Stop changing clocks; let kids go to school 1-2 hours later and get home later.
Proof that sunlight is Evil! Return to your basements and bunkers fellow geeks. Avoid any light not produced by our shining monitors, as it is a lie. Hazard the light from the Sun and you will be burned! What other proof do you need? Only in our computer generated worlds do we find Truth.
125% x 81% = 100% (to two significant figures, which is as close as we can get from the article data).
OTOH, it would be interesting to see if you could gain a long term benefit by letting people sleep in an extra hour on a regular basis.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
I would think an even dispersal of heart attacks would be preferable to spiking them on one day due to hospital resources. Plus, causing heart attacks to happen sooner than they would have is also bad. If it happens six months earlier than it would have otherwise, that's six months a patient might have been able to mitigate those risk factors.
With so many people running off smartphones and computers rather than watches, I feel like we could probably soon manage to move away from a on/off switch. Have dawn in each time zone be, say, 7 AM each day, have the time adjusted between 3 and 4 AM each night, it would be, what, a few minutes difference each night at most?
I doubt we ever WOULD move to something like that. It might be amusing to see Obama propose that just to see what republicans would say about it. And aside from heart attacks, I don't really see much reason for it aside from I like more light in the evenings. But I think we definitely could do it.
Why is it that something that actually would save electricity, forcing people to upgrade to more efficient lightbulbs, got shot down, but the government still insists on fucking with our clocks twice a year?
You want more daylight at the "end of the day"? You get up earlier. If businesses want to change their operating hours, (like many do each weekend anyway, for somewhat ambiguous religious reasons) nothing is stopping them.
I'm sure DST does wonders to reduce the energy use of mining cryptocoins, though. Oh, no, wait, it doesn't. Mining rigs suck down juice 24/7 and imaginary currency could care less about an imaginary time change. I think the moral here is that if people have a financial incentive to waste electricity (such as light bulbs with a cheaper initial purchase cost), they will - regardless of what the clock says.
---
DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
Seriously? Replacing every clock in the involved countries is the most obvious solution? It would be technically, economically, and socially easier to just leave things as they are.
I feel miserable for at least 2 weeks after daylight savings time. Like someone kicked me in the head each morning. Walk around like a zombie.
Do we even have any evidence that it actually increases economic activity? I know that was the common sense rationale when it was established - but common sense is often wrong when applied to complicated systems. Is there a clear increase when DST kicks in, and corresponding decrease when it ends? Have we done in-depth statistical cross-comparisons between seasonal economic fluctuations between locales that do and do not practice DST? Has anyone even bothered to look?
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
What is the actual risk of heart attack? 25% sounds like a lot, but if it is a 25% increase on 0.0000001% chance, then it doesn't sound as good for an article.
No, not overall economic activity, consumer activity. People go shopping more because daylight is longer. That much is proven, and retailers love DST because of it. Not sure about the overall economic effect. Wouldn't be surprised if it was a net zero.
A fair point in terms of DST - though the fact that the increase immediately after DST begins is larger than the decrease after it ends would at least naively suggest that DST may be responsible for a slight net increase in heart attacks.
For Christmas though - considering the social obligation many people feel to give gifts, and the number of "crap" gifts that are given and never get returned (including the huge amount of Christmas-themed stuff that may be kept, but only used for a few weeks a year, and which you would never by for yourself), I suspect that such a consumer-oriented holiday stimulates a net increase in purchases. Ties and underwear notwithstanding it is in essence a period of socially-mandated luxury spending, much of which might not occur otherwise.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
They just adjusted the Crimea clock by 2 hours. Can we expect a flood of heart attacks now?
I'll let TFA speak for itself...
"The overall number of heart attacks for the full week after daylight saving time didn't change, just the number on that first Monday. The number then dropped off the other days of the week."
Fine, call it consumer activity (being a subset, any change in consumer activity will have a corresponding change in economic activity, unless there's some secondary effect that neutralizes the change).
So - can you cite an actual scientific study that backs up the common-sense claims you just made? Preferably several independent studies?
If the change is real though, how would it be a net zero? Perhaps compared to a world where clocks were offset by 1/2 hour year round, but IIRC DST didn't involve adjusting the winter "official time" at all, only the summer.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
It sits on the "trailing edge" of its time zone. The clocks are out of kilter with the sun, by almost two hours during DST. Time zone borders should be moved to the white areas between the red and green of this graphic and then kill DST. Solar noon should never happen before the clock strikes 12.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
So they noticed that the monday after the switch, they had 8 more heart-attack patients than on a regular monday.
Don't know if these are averages, but it just means they see 25% more patients.
It doesn't mean that everyone has 25% more chance of having an heart-attack that particular day.
1. Harder to collect and verify that data (people traveling will not be as even a distribution across the population as say... everyone who is affected by DST and goes to a hospital)
2. It's more common to have exceptional factors when traveling across timezones (countries, states, etc) due to the nature of events that would necessarily be irregular (not like a daily job that you can adjust for).
In a word? No.
So we could see if they compared to Arizona — which mostly doesn't follow DST. For for that matter to dairy farmers who also don't follow DST in their sleep schedule. From TFA it seems like the data only comes from the state of Michigan in what I believe is one year only.
This study is interesting but there is no where near enough data to draw any real conclusions... not that that will stop anyone...
What do you know I wrote a novel
I sometimes wonder how idiotic ideas like changing the clocks ever find the light of day. Fortunately, we have researchers to provide factual evidence for what a bloody stupid idea that is.
Not that our so-called "leaders" are bothered by minor details like facts.
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
But you could look at Arizona which mostly doesn't follow DST, or at Dairy Farmers who don't change their sleep schedule because of it, etc
This study only looks at 42,000 admissions in Michigan, and TFA doesn't indicate if that was from one year or multiple years.
I am not saying the study is useless, but it is just one dataset. We need a whole lot more data before we can draw any real conclusions.
What do you know I wrote a novel
Yes, hopefully by this point we all know that the touted "energy savings" of DST are complete BS. There've certainly been enough independent studies in the last century all reaching the same conclusion. But what does that have to do with the conversation at hand, which is about (presumably) unrelated consumer behavior?
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
DST doesn't change the amount of daylight. The earth's orbit and axial tilt change the amount of daylight.
If the problem is that businesses do better when there are more daylight hours after people finish work, that could be solved without having a DST at all - just provide an incentive for employers to change hours or offer flex time to employees.
In fact, I think we would do far more for the economy and the environment by encouraging businesses to stagger hours such that there is no more "rush hour." The time and fuel people waste sitting in traffic could be put to better use doing pretty much anything else.
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Is this causation or correlation or just a bad use of statistics?
For instance, the clock changes on Saturday night (Sunday morning to be exact), As such, there is no loss of sleep on Sunday night for the heart attack on Monday. Even more perplexing, is the drop in heart attack doesn't occur until the following Tuesday, even though again the clock change is Saturday night.
This would be easy enough to verify, take any other night, when one traditionally looses sleep, say New Year's Eve. Is there a rise in heart attacks on January 2nd?
Personally, I'd vote for a bad use of statistics.
Went looking for the original paper to see how many cases were looked at. Dr. Sandhu doesn't show up in a search for UC at Denver so no luck there. A few news article referenced a Conference which points to http://www.medpagetoday.com/Me... .
That page says that the # of extra attacks is 8. Moreover, Dr. Sandhu is quoted as saying that the total number of heart attacks in the week leading up to and following the clock change is unchanged so if there is an effect at all, it's front-loading the week's expected heart attack frequency.
Are you kidding? This is far from "outside of our control", if there has ever been one cause of death that could so easily be avoided, then this one: STOP FUCKING WITH THE CLOCK!
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Why should I give a fuck about whether it's light or dark outside when I browse Amazon?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Actually, it would be easiest if we just get rid of the crap. In pretty much every aspect.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Set the clocks once in winter for optimal daylight, and be done with it already!
https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM
During EST, my upstate NY city has hardly any sunlight after 4:30 PM. As a result, it seems the local businesses are all on a 8-4:30 work schedule. A few weeks ago I overslept and was amazed at how freely traffic flowed when trying to get to work at 9.
And, we *still* want it to be EDT year round. I don't care if it's completely dark on the drive in to work, but driving home in the dark is depressing (it's dark because "the day is already over" versus "the day hasn't begun yet").
It's the 21st century, we do not need to follow a system created for an 18th century agricultural society. For that matter, I'm rather surprised we haven't all switched to GMT...
Before the railroad, clocks were set to local solar time, which changes significantly every 25 miles.
The earliest locomotives could easily be pushed to 25mph or better over a decent stretch of track. That made scheduling clumsy and dangerous even after the introduction of the telegraph.
GMT was introduced as a navigational aid for mariners, an easy and reliable way to determine longitude. When the sun says its 5 PM in New York and the moon says its 10PM in London, you have a problem. The difference between night and day,
If you can't adjust your bedtime by one hour, you may have a medical condition
Indeed, it is so. It's a pretty common one. Most people can adjust by one hour in either direction. Some like me can easily do +2 or -0 a day - my circadian rhythm is simply too long.
People without this problem call us "lazy" or "whiners", because mocking a physical disability is always good for a laugh.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Yup.
And some of us actually travel more than a few hundred kilometres from our birth places and can make large adjustments without complaining about it every time. My biggest was twelve hours, after which I went surfing.
Oddly, your post immediately follows (follows, not a child of) a post where the poster is able to multiple 1.25 x 0.81 and correctly get 1.0.
Why not just call it what time it really is and have work start at 8 instead?
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And what a manly man you are. Now brag about how much you bench press. Whatever makes you feel better about yourself.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Just set the time to the half-hour between regular and 'daylight savings', you won't be more that 30 minutes off all year round.
I haven't heard a cogent explanation of Daylight Savings Time, ever.
It's some stupid thing that we do just because we do it.
Did you read my post? Work is starting at 8 and it's *still* too dark at the end of the day during the four months of EST... I've noticed this problem in other time zones as well (JST, AST). I am guessing that the pre-alarm clock "up with the sun" mindset is why the time zones are the way they are, but if you poll people with a simple question "do you prefer sunlight before work or after" the answer is a resounding after.
I lived in a country which was +9 hours of difference relative to where I was born and grew up, then went back. A few years later I traveled to another country which is -12 hours.
It's not that hard to adjust. But it has nothing whatsoever to do with the problem that GP and I both have, which is that our sleep/wake cycle is longer than 24 hours. In fact, it makes it easier to adjust to bigger swings, but a major pain in the ass to adjust to small ones and keep them there.
Finally! Something concrete to take to congress.
Yeah, I'm still baffled why both commerce and retail insist on having the same start time of 9am. How many people do you know are in the retail shops at that time? Most poeple I know are AT WORK!
Some countries have figured it out though. I was living in Malaysia for a while and they had regular 9-5 for general business, and 10am-10pm for retail. It was great being able to go to the shops after work, and the malls became quite social with lots of restaurants and poeple browsing around - as opposed to the Thursday "late night trading" frenzy in Western Australia.
It was a good idea during a war when everyone had to observe black out conditions. Of course that war is long finished.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
Is there a reason that serious heart cases *should* be distributed uniformly?
Might spread out the hospital load.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
I know sleep loss and/or sleeping for unregular length and time can lead to all kinds of problems, but since I can't even remember when I've slept more than 6 hours at a time, and I have to pull all-nighters from time to time, and I'm still alive and kicking, I have to say I believe that eating habits (type and quantity) and regular exercising can help a lot in balancing the scale. Of course, people having circulatory, blood pressure or heart problems might have a different story to tell.
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
I don't know if it is a real theory but it is an item in a half written book that I may finish one day.
When humans move into space, they will move away from the need to follow any solar day. They will use a 100,000 second day. That's 27 Hours, 42 minutes and 40 seconds.
It's only a minor plot item so I haven't worked it all out but there are several people here saying that they would settle into a 28 hour rhythm. I think I would too.
I'll see your Constitution and raise you a Queen.
I have a vague recollection of Australia doing a similar study that showed a 10% increase in heart attacks when that hour sleep was lost. Seems that this is confirming that study which is one of the things science tries to do, replicate results.
Sure enough, the cow costume was hanging up next to the superhero outfit and sailors uniform. (S,Spud)
This is still easily solved without messing with the clocks. You could, for instance, start at 7am, or even 6am!
Personally, I'd prefer that the start times be more spread out, anyway. I think that traffic and traffic frustration are bigger ills than whether it's dark or light when you're sitting in that traffic.
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I think you missed what I was getting at... that the time zones are more often than not, "off by one" while in standard time during the winter months. I am agreeing that we should stop messing with the clocks, and just pin them to DST. Since we spend 8 months out of the year in DST and 4 in ST, it is already almost there. The net result could very well be a national shift of time zones "to the left".
What you are suggesting is that during the winter months, people change office hours to start earlier, to counteract the meddling with the clocks. How is that better than my solution of not meddling?
Why pin them to DST? Why not pin them to something with astronomical reality, i.e. solar noon.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
Why not? A clock's purpose is for humans. It's relation to the sun is of no importance. The simplest tweak to everyone's routine to improve things is is to pin them to DST, to correct a problem that is only present for four months a year (and caused directly by returning to standard time).