The Holidays: Don't ignore cardio health!

Be extra careful during the holidays: risks of a heart attack are higher and hospitals are short-staffed!

Why are risks of a heart attack higher during the holidays?

Here are some factors to consider:

• Busy revellers tend to skip their medications, forget them when travelling or be unable to get refills far from home.
• What dieter can resist holiday goodies? The few extra pounds so many people gain will haunt you long term. Right away, a particularly heavy meal, especially a high-fat one, stresses the heart as it is digested. Blood pressure and heart rate increase. There's even evidence that the lining of arteries becomes temporarily more clot prone.
• Too much salt has an even more immediate effect, causing fluid retention that in turn makes the heart have to pump harder.
• Alcohol in moderation is considered heart healthy. But if a round of holiday parties leaves you tipsy, that, too, makes your heart pump harder to get blood to peripheral arteries.
• Worse is something called "holiday heart syndrome," where alcohol literally irritates the heart muscle to trigger an irregular heartbeat called atrial fibrillation. If atrial fibrillation goes unchecked for too long, it in turn can cause a stroke.
• People say they're too busy to exercise, especially as it gets cold and darkness falls earlier. It can take months to build back up to pre-holiday exercise habits.
• As for cold weather, it can constrict blood vessels, and the extra exertion of snow shovelling can cause a heart attack. The usual winter rise in respiratory diseases is another risk, adding further burden to a stressed heart: another reason to get a flu shot.

"Moderation is the key to almost everything. Happy Holidays!"