(Don Rauf/ Everyday Health) — While the holidays are a time of joy and togetherness for many, they are also a time when serious cardiac events peak. The American Heart Association (AHA) warns that more people die from heart attacks during the last week of December than at any other time of the year.
The health organization recently highlighted previous research finding that more cardiac deaths happen in the United States on December 25 compared with any other day, followed by December 26 and January 1. The analysis was based on an examination of a national database of all deaths in the United States over 28 years between 1973 and 2001.
This year, holiday heart attack risk may be even greater because Christmas falls on a Monday.
Serious heart attacks are more likely to occur on Mondays than other days of the week, according to a study presented at the British Cardiovascular Society conference in the summer of 2023. Looking at records of more than 10,000 individuals in Ireland who were hospitalized with a complete blockage of a major coronary artery, scientists determined that the risk of such an event was 13 percent higher on Mondays compared with other days of the week. (…)