The Peak Hours for Heart Attack Listed
Sudden cardiac death, in a sense like daily commuting, has at least one rush hour--and perhaps two--with the peak danger period hitting between 7 and 11 a.m. and a secondary heavy period from 5 to 6 in the afternoon.
It isn’t quite clear why, but it may be that sudden, fatal heart seizures are triggered in the morning when blood cells gather around preexisting fatty plaque deposits in the arteries, causing the plaque to break away and block an artery.
Why this occurs in the morning isn’t clear. But the researchers noted that this clustering of sudden death--defined as death within an hour of the unanticipated onset of symptoms--seems to follow a pattern like that of some types of serious though nonfatal heart attacks.
The cardiac death rush-hour theory emerged Monday in the journal, Circulation. The research was done at Harvard Medical School in Boston.
The researchers studied records of more than 2,200 Massachusetts people who died suddenly outside of hospitals. Of those who died of heart attacks, abnormally high rates occurred between 7 and 11 a.m.--with an even higher peak between 10 and 11 a.m.--and, secondarily, in the afternoon between 5 and 6. Conversely, sudden cardiac death during sleep occurred in unusually low percentages of cases.
“The morning appears to be a time when . . . transient risk factors that lead to sudden cardiac death are likely to be prominent,” the researchers concluded. In all, said researcher Dr. Stefan Willich, doctors wonder: “What is going on at that time of day?”
Though old age--after 70 or so--is seen as a time when people slow down and discard exercise habits they may have had most of their lives, the final years of life may be one of the most important periods for appropriately judicious use of aerobic workouts.
That position appears in the Lancet, a leading British medical journal, which concludes that fitness activities--from walking modest distances to doing sedate floor exercises--may help old people stave off the body deterioration that comes naturally with age. At the very least, argues an unsigned commentary in the medical journal, such activities as floor exercises may have the pragmatic benefit of helping older people overcome the fear of falling by keeping them able to get up if they do.
In England, the commentary estimated, fewer than 9% of people over 70 walk two miles as often as once a month and less than 5% swim. “Fortunately, however, most of the training effects of regular exercise are much the same . . . in old age as in youth,” the journal contended. Even the old can improve their muscle mass, overall strength and endurance through exercise--structured carefully so as not to be overly strenuous. “Professional and lay attitudes must be changed,” the journal argued, “the expectations of elderly people themselves increased and appropriate facilities provided.”
Among gerontologists interested in the study results is Dr. Edward Schneider, of USC’s Andrus Gerontology Center. Schneider noted that American studies of old people who have suffered serious falls have found their feet to be seriously out of condition.
