The New Zealand scientists were prompted to conduct the study by publications by American authors. After all, there were papers available according to which the highest number of deaths related to heart disease occurred between Christmas and the beginning of the new year. However, the New Zealand doctors took into account the fact that America has the worst weather conditions during this period - there is no frost in their country during the Christmas period, so they decided to see if the correlation between cardiac deaths and the Christmas period also existed in New Zealand.

Data on deaths in New Zealand from 1988 to 2013 were considered in the analyses. The study was compiled using information on just under 740,000 deaths from the said period, of which almost 200,000 deaths were due to heart disease.

The festive period is conducive to deaths from cardiac causes?

New Zealand researchers estimated how many deaths should theoretically occur per day from the mentioned period. After analysis, they found that there was an increase of up to 4.2 per cent in the number of deaths from cardiovascular causes during the festive period (the period from 25 December to 7 January was taken as this time). When analysing the age of the people in whom the deaths occurred, the scholars noted that people slightly younger than at other times of the year died of cardiovascular causes during the mentioned period.

What could be the reasons for such a phenomenon? Various factors have been considered, such as the consumption of holiday-specific foods (some of which are highly calorific and high in fat), as well as an increase in alcohol consumption during the festive season. Other factors that may contribute to an increase in cardiovascular deaths over the festive period may also be the associated stress (unfortunately, December is not a time for all people to experience only positive emotions), as well as reduced staffing levels in medical facilities.