Study: Check Pulse with Spring Forward to Daylight Saving Time

By Beth Dalbey

Cumming residents, A University of Michigan study has some disturbing news as Americans prepare to spring forward to Daylight Saving Time Sunday: Your short-term risk of a heart attack could increase.

U-M cardiologist Dr. Hitinder Gurm told the Detroit Free Press that though it’s tough to pinpoint an exact reason, the data showed a 25 percent surge in heart attacks on the first full work day after the time switch.

Researchers have long known that most heart attacks occur on Mondays, but the study suggests that the stress Americans go through as they to adjust their internal clocks to the time change plays a role in the spike in heart attacks Gurm said.

“The change we see is subtle, but we know when events happen that increase stress levels, heart attacks go up,” he said.

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The study was based on Michigan hospital data collected Jan. 1, 2010, to Sept. 15, 2013. On each day of the study, which covered 1,354 days in all, there were 31 heart attacks. It was first published in 2014 in BMJ, formerly the British Medical Journal.

The lead author, Dr. Amneet Sandhu, a cardiology fellow at the University of Colorado in Denver, said the study revealed another surprise.

Despite the Monday surge, “what’s interesting is that the total number of heart attacks didn’t change the week after Daylight Saving Time.”

“But these events were much more frequent the Monday after the spring time change and then tapered off over the other days of the week,” he said in an American College of Cardiology news release at the time the study results were published.

“It may mean that people who are already vulnerable to heart disease may be at greater risk right after sudden time changes,” Sandhu said.

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Patch file photo