Home Cardiology Cold Weather Tied to Increased Risk of Stroke, STEMI

Cold Weather Tied to Increased Risk of Stroke, STEMI

But more study needed to determine what strategies might cut those risks

TUESDAY, Sept. 1, 2015 (HealthDay News) — The onset of cold weather may increase the risk of ischemic stroke and ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) for some, according to two studies presented Saturday at the annual European Society of Cardiology Congress, held from Aug. 29 to Sept. 2 in London.

In one study, Tze-Fan Chao, M.D., a cardiologist at the Taipei Veterans General Hospital and National Yang-Ming University in Taiwan, and colleagues compared daily temperature records in six regions of Taiwan between 2000 and 2011 and the incidence of ischemic stroke among 289,559 new-onset atrial fibrillation patients. The analysis revealed stroke risk rose by 10 percent in spring and nearly 20 percent in winter, as compared with summertime risk.

A second study led by researchers from the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada, found that with every 20-degree Fahrenheit drop in temperature, the risk for experiencing STEMI went up by 7 percent.

“We demonstrated that there is a clear relationship between daily temperature and the risk of STEMI,” study author Shuangbo Liu, M.D., an adult cardiology resident at the University of Manitoba, noted in a news release from the European Society of Cardiology.

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