WEDNESDAY, March 27 (HealthDay News) -- Transition to and from daylight savings time (DST) might modestly affect the incidence and type of acute myocardial infarction (AMI), according to research published in the March issue of The American Journal of Cardiology.
Monica R. Jiddou, M.D., of the William Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak, Mich., and colleagues retrospectively reviewed electronic records for all patients presenting to the hospital with AMI the week after DST began in the spring and the week after DST ended in the autumn, from October 2006 to April 2012.
According to the researchers, of the 935 patients with AMI during the study period, the frequency of AMI was 49.5 percent in the spring and 50.5 percent in autumn. The incidence rate (IR) for AMI in the first week after DST began was 1.17, with the greatest increase in AMI on the first day after DST began (IR, 1.71). The IR for non-ST-segment AMI after the transition to DST was statistically higher in the study group than in the control group. In comparison, the IR was 0.99 (95 percent confidence interval, 0.85 to 1.16) after DST ended in autumn.
"Future research is needed to determine whether specific pharmacotherapies and/or behavioral interventions can attenuate the modest increased cardiovascular risk resulting from biologic rhythm disturbances in vulnerable subjects," the authors write.
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