Study refutes link between daylight saving time and heart attack risk
Kyiv • UNN
Analysis of data from 168,870 patients disproved previous assumptions about the impact of changing clocks on the incidence of acute myocardial infarctions and treatment outcomes.
Switching to daylight saving time or standard time does not increase the risk of heart attack, as was sometimes previously believed. This result was shown by a large American study. Data from more than 1,000 hospitals indicate that changing clocks does not affect the frequency of acute heart attacks or treatment outcomes. This is stated in the Medical Express material, writes UNN.
Details
A large study by the Duke Clinical Institute refuted the common belief that switching to daylight saving time or standard time increases the risk of heart attack. Scientists analyzed data from 168,870 patients from 1,124 US hospitals between 2013 and 2022. The average age of participants was 65 years, and a third of them were women.
Researchers compared the number of acute myocardial infarctions in the week of switching to daylight saving time or standard time with the weeks before and after the clock change. The results showed that there is no direct correlation between clock changes and heart attack frequency.
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For example, in the spring, during the transition to daylight saving time, 28,678 cases were recorded, while in the week before – 28,596, and after – 28,169. Similarly, no differences were found in the fall.
Additional indicators such as in-hospital mortality, stroke, and re-procedures after heart attack also did not change during the transition to daylight saving time or standard time. Analysis of states without daylight saving time (Arizona and Hawaii) confirmed the absence of a link between clock changes and cardiac events.
The authors of the study in JAMA Network Open emphasize that although previous work in Sweden and the US hinted at a short-term increase in risk after the spring transition, large modern data did not confirm these assumptions. Changes in sleep patterns and schedules due to clock changes, according to their conclusions, do not increase the risk of acute myocardial infarction and do not affect treatment outcomes in the hospital.