Did you know that December 26th (celebrated as our Boxing Day holiday in the UK, Australia, Germany, Greenland, New Zealand, Hong Kong, and here in Canada) is historically one of the most dangerous days of the year for people vulnerable to cardiac problems?

And many of these ‘Merry Christmas Coronaries’ will hit people who didn’t even realize they were at risk when they unwrapped their gifts the day before.

“This time of year is notorious for heart attacks, heart failures, and arrhythmias,” says Dr. Samin Sharma, director of interventional cardiology at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York.

It’s widely accepted that the holiday season tends to see increased numbers of cardiac events. One study in 2004 by researchers at the University of California, San Diego and Tufts University found that heart-related deaths increase by 5% during these holidays. Another study in 2008  found that daily visits to hospitals for heart failure increased by 33% during the four days after Christmas.

Anecdotally, cardiologists often report that their hospital Emergency Departments stay relatively quiet on Christmas Day itself. Then, come December 26th, they see a surge of cardiac traffic.

Most cardiac deaths reported in the two studies involved outpatients rather than inpatients, suggesting that treatment-seeking delay may be a factor. People may not want to make a fuss during family celebrations even when they are experiencing distressing symptoms, or they may misinterpret these symptoms as just indigestion brought on by too much eating and drinking.   (more…)

Ah, Christmas. . .  Joy to the world, peace on earth, blahblahblah. For some, the Hallmark card fantasy of the perfect family Christmas is nigh impossible to achieve without the accompanying requisite levels of artery-clogging stress and anxiety by the time the New Year arrives.  As Michele Meyer writes in Heart Healthy Living this month: “Whether your family resembles the Waltons or the Sopranos, few family gatherings are without potential for unspoken tensions. 

“Both unresolved resentment and anxious anticipation of conflict can harm your heart by spiking anger and depression,” psychologist Dr. Susan Heitler told Meyer. “The higher the level of emotional arousal, the more stress on your heart.”

And if you’re sometimes tempted to just skip Christmas and go straight to Mother’s Day, consider some of these stress-busting tips this year from Toronto author Susan Stern (Awakening Your Life Skills) who says that we should all start a plan in advance for de-stressing the holiday season as much as possible.   For example:  (more…)

When one of our nurses knocked on my office door to tell me that the mandatory Hand Hygiene class for all hospital staff was starting, I sighed: “Oh, for Pete’s sake! I already know how to wash my hands!”  But off I went, reluctantly.

The class started with the instructor teaching us how to scrub-scrub-scrub our hands, in between our fingers, up and down our thumbs, right up to and around the wrists. We learned to do this for 30 full seconds (it’s longer than you think – try singing two verses of ‘Happy Birthday’ just to make sure). Then, she shut off the room lights and took out her special Lumalite that made any leftover germs on our hands glow a bright turquoise.  I was stunned by the results.  I’d expected to (maybe) find some glowing debris under our fingernails, but instead found that most of our cuticles were gleaming turquoise – any area of dry skin is particularly susceptible to attracting germs. Our wrists appeared radioactive.  All rings with diamonds on them glowed like firecrackers.  And this during a class when all we were focused on was scrubbing our hands!

This sobering class experience reinforced how casually most people take handwashing. We poke our hands under the running water with a squirt of soap, do a quick rinse and wipe, and then we’re done.  While nine out of ten North Americans claim that they always wash their hands after using a public restroom, a 5-city observational survey in 2007  found the actual number to be barely 75%. That’s down nearly 10% from a similar study done in 2005, and that average is largely due to men.  The percentage of males observed washing their hands fell from 75% in 2005 to 66% in 2007. 

According to the Centre for Disease Control, the single most important thing we can do to keep from getting sick and spreading illness to others is to wash our hands correctly.    (more…)