Heart attacks double in winter, youngsters at high risk, warn experts

By Shalini Bhardwaj
New Delhi [India], January 1 : Cold weather triggers medical problems like influenza, joint pain, sore throat, asthma, Covid-19 and heart disease. According to Dr Balbir Singh, Chairman and Head, Cardiology, Max Hospitals, the number of cases of heart attacks has doubled in comparison to last month due to the winter and poor lifestyles.
"Heart problems are increasing in our country. Winters are a big stress on the heart. The heart is one of the major organs that suffer during the winter and we know why it does so and we can already see a spike happening in our hospital every day. On average, we get about two heart attack cases in a day. In January, it's going to be a little more."
"We know from our experience in the hospital. We know how many heart attacks we treated in May-June. Now it is almost double that number. So you can see the trend is upwards in winters," he said.
On the age group suffering the most, he said youngsters are also coming up with cardiac problems. "So you know there is no age group that is now immune. Recently, two months ago, I treated a 26-year-old lady, and she had a heart attack. In my career, I have never imagined such things happening because women are generally protected at reproductive age from heart attacks. She was a nonsmoker. The only thing she handles is a lot of stress.
"So we should forget the idea that I'm young and the current disease is not going to affect me. This is not correct. This awareness that even young people can get it and that even younger people need to take precautions can help this country in a big way. We don't want youngsters to get hurt and they have so much work to do for the country and themselves. They have so many responsibilities," he said.
Later, he explained, "Winter is an important risk factor because, in winter, the vessels that take blood vessels to the body tend to constrict. So if blood vessels are going to my skin if they constrict, it prevents evaporation, it prevents loss of heat, and it tries to conserve heat for the body. So it constricts and by constricting, it does two things. It does increase the heart rate and blood pressure. Even a small increase in heart rate is a risk factor. Even a small increase in blood pressure is a risk marker. "
"There's a beautiful study that has shown that if the nighttime heart rate is high, the death rate and cardiovascular mortality go up. So it tells me that just an increase in heart rates in winters, the heart rate tends to go up because it's the body's conserving blood, heart has to work more and once this happens is more inflammation in the vessels and is heart attack. The second factor which also leads us to drink less water is dehydration so the blood viscosity goes up. So clot formation is high."
He said that rising air pollution in winter is also one of the reasons.
On other factors that lead to heart attacks, he said, "If I look at smoking instead of going down, it's one of the major risk factors: lack of physical exercise, overeating, over bingeing and alcohol."