We hear about ‘medical breakthroughs’ all the time yet this one caught our eye which we noticed in Reuters news, especially as winter approaches fast and we send our fans for a routine air conditioning service in readiness for spring. British research has shown that when temperatures dropped just one degree Celsius (1.8 Fahrenheit) on a given day, there were an additional 200 heart attacks in the UK over the next month.
Neither flu nor air pollution could explain the association, according to the British Medical Journal.
“As it gets colder, think about limiting the time outside,” said researcher and doctoral student Krishnan Bhaskaran, of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
“Elderly people and those with heart disease were at highest risk and should pay extra attention to their clothing if they plan to spend time in wintry weather.”
It isn’t particularly clear from the data how lower temperatures would trigger heart attacks though boffins have suggested that cooling could increase blood clotting and make the blood thicker, or increase blood pressure.
Based on hospital records for more than 84,000 people who had suffered heart attacks, they calculated that every one-degree temperature drop on a given day was linked to a two percent risk increase over the next month. So with 146,000 heart attacks every year in the UK, just a few degrees of cold would equate to several hundred extra cases.
Great! With such er
