Heart failure risk seems to rise in winter
When theres a real chill in the air, your risk of being hospitalized for heart failure rises, a new study suggests.
Cold weather also seems to boost the risk of hospitalization for both heart failure and atrial fibrillation, a condition characterized by an irregular heart rhythm.
In the past, seasonal differences have been noted for heart attacks and strokes, said study co-author Dr. Abhishek Deshmukh, a cardiac electrophysiologist with the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.
We looked at seasonal differences in patients getting hospitalized for heart failure and atrial fibrillation from a large national hospitalizations database, he added. We found that during cooler months, especially in February, the rates of hospitalizations are the highest.
It is striking that people get more sick with cardiac diseases during cooler months, Deshmukh said. Whether it is the cooler air, after-effect of holiday season or other environmental triggers needs further studies.
Deshmukh and his colleagues were to present their findings Friday at a meeting of the Heart Rhythm Society, in San Francisco.
More than five million Americans experience heart failure every year and as many as 6 million may have atrial fibrillation, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The study focused on hospitalizations that occurred between 2002 and 2012 due to heart failure. That information included more than 12 million patients, a third of whom also had atrial fibrillation. Averaging the frequency of hospitalisations across the 10-year period, the researchers found that both those with heart failure and those with heart failure and atrial fibrillation were notably more likely to be hospitalized during winter months compared with summer months.
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