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Cold temperatures mean higher stroke, heart attack risk for some women

Quality Improvement Monitor, October 8, 2004

Cold weather may cause an increase in hospital admissions among women who suffer a stroke or heart attack, according to new research that sheds light on the mechanisms that can trigger these conditions.

Researchers from the clinical pharmacology department of the Imperical College London, St. Mary's Campus, used data from the World Health Organization to examine the relationship between variation in three climatic variables and risk of hospitalization for venous thromboembolism (VTE), arterial stroke, and acute myocardial infarction (AMI). They focused their examination on women in 17 countries who are younger than age 50 and who were admitted to the hospital. Their findings appear in the Journal of Clinical Epidemiology (Vol. 57, No. 7).

They found that a 5°C drop in outside temperature was associated with a 7% increase in admissions for stroke, and a 12% increase in admissions for heart attack.

"To our knowledge, this is the first report based on an international multi-centre study to investigate and show a clear association between climate and hospital admission rates of these events among young women from a range of different climatic zones," write the authors, Choon Lan Chang, Martin Shipley, Michael Marmot, and Neil Poulter.

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