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10 August 2010
Expert reaction to research linking temperature with heart attacks, to be published in the BMJ
A study of hospital admissions data across England and Wales suggested that a drop in temperature is associated with an increased rate of heart attacks.
Dr Tim Chico, Clinician Scientist and honorary Consultant Cardiologist, Deputy Director NIHR Cardiovascular Biomedical Research Unit, University of Sheffield, said:
"It is extremely difficult to calculate the effect of weather on risk of a heart attack. This study used complex maths and statistics to work out whether temperature influences the number of people suffering a heart attack, but this process can overestimate risk or not take other important factors into consideration.
"Although interesting, the findings do not prove lower temperatures cause heart attacks directly, and I won't be telling my patients to do anything different during cold weather. If people are concerned about the risk of suffering a heart attack (and we all should be) then they should exercise more, control their weight, avoid smoking, and consider ways to lower their cholesterol."
Bhaskaran et al. Short term effects of temperature on risk of myocardial infarction in England and Wales: time series regression analysis of the Myocardial Ischaemia National Audit Project (MINAP) registry, BMJ (2010); 341:c3823, doi:10.1136/bmj.c3823
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