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."

Comments

Sleep -1?

[eneville]

Go to bed an hour earlier then?

Re:Sleep -1?

[ArcadeMan]

Our biological clocks don't care about our artificial, human-made clocks.

Re:Sleep -1?

[MillionthMonkey]

Until they go beep-beep-beep at 6 AM.

Re:Sleep -1?

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Re:Sleep -1?

[hey!]

Why not go to bed at the same solar time and wake up at the same solar time? This involves waking up earlier than you need to on work days during standard time. But so what? During daylight savings time, spend an hour in the morning in a cafe drinking coffee and reading a novel.

Years ago that would mark you as a weirdo because you couldn't stay up and watch some hot TV show that starts at 10PM, but people aren't slaves to the broadcast TV schedule any longer, so why not do things on your own schedule?

I'm by nature a night owl, but staying up is no big deal for me. Getting up early is a lot more rewarding; everything you like about being up abnormally late is true of being up abnormally early.

Re:Sleep -1?

[Immerman]

For one it doesn't work if you're on corporate time. I spent a couple years in a windowless office, and let me tell you winters sucked - I only worked 8-5, but for a couple months near the solstice dawn was just breaking when I left for work, and the sun was setting about the time I left for home. Lunchtime was the only sun I got to see, and that's at at 35.6N latitude, most of the nation is further north and has it even worse.

These days I am in fact operating mostly on solar time, but daylight savings still meant that 8am went from being an hour or so after sunrise, to having it still hanging on the horizon with only the lit sky providing light. If you presume you need a 30-60 minutes for your morning rituals and getting to work, that means for a few weeks after DST you need to be waking up while it's still dark out, and after you were finally getting to see some sun in the morning too.

Re:Sleep -1?

[Charliemopps]

You don't have kids.

A simpler cure

[petes_PoV]

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.

Re:A simpler cure

[lgw]

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

The is how "morning people" have been misunderstanding "night owls" for centuries. Here's why you're wrong: I cannot go to sleep on demand. I can wake up on demand, thanks to my alarm clock, I can stay up later than my body wants me to, but I cannot make my body go to sleep any earlier than it wants to (without addictive drugs).

So, yes, if you fuck with the clocks like an inconsiderate fucking fucker, I'll lose an hour of sleep. Nothing I can do about it. And since it takes me a few days to adjust to getting up 1 hour earlier (the norm is only 1 day per hour), I miss an hour's sleep for a few days after the clock change.

Re:A simpler cure

[LordLimecat]

The amount of daylight your body gets ALSO affects your biological health and circadian rhythm.

Re:A simpler cure

[bill_mcgonigle]

So, yes, if you fuck with the clocks like an inconsiderate fucking fucker, I'll lose an hour of sleep.

Yes, but what you fail to understand is that people have to go to work, and the times of day and night shift over the year. It's not like businesses could just adopt "winter hours" and "summer hours" - everybody must upset their entire day to accommodate it.

Well, except for Home Depot, Walmart, all the parks, and all those businesses that do have different summer hours. But nobody else could possibly do that - it would be pure anarchy. I mean, children wouldn't even get to go to sleep while it's till light out in June if we did something crazy like keep the clocks the same all year!

Dozens of lives lost to heart attacks (and the few billion in admin time) is a small price to pay for the soothing hand of Congress regulating our clocks twice a year.

Re:A simpler cure

[fremsley471]

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.

Re:A simpler cure

[FuzzNugget]

"morning people"

You misspelled "minions of Satan"

Circadian Rhythm

[X!0mbarg]

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 ;)

Re:Circadian Rhythm

[ShanghaiBill]

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.

sunlight is evil

[confused one]

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.

Re:Enough of the stupidity

[Primate Pete]

Since World War II, it has been mostly about saving energy. In the US, FDR made it mandatory under the name "War Time." Early uses go back to World War I, before school buses were in common use. It's not about children or crime.

Going to die anyway

[WaffleMonster]

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."