Warning as most common day to have severe heart attack revealed according to new research

The most common day to have the most serious type of heart attack has been revealed and, perhaps unsurprisingly, it’s the beginning of the week you need to be most wary of. New research has found they are more likely to happen on a Monday than any other time.

The study found that the chances of having a heart attack rose by 13 percent, feeding into the ‘blue Monday’ phenomenon. Data was analysed from Doctors at the Belfast Health and Social Care Trust and the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland and looked at 10,528 patients across the island of Ireland - 7,112 in the Republic and 3,416 in Northern Ireland.

The patients whose data was analysed were admitted to hospital over a five year period from 2013 to 2018 with the most serious type of heart attack an ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI).

A STEMI occurs when a major coronary artery is completely blocked. The researchers found that there was a spike in these types of heart attacks at the start of the working week and the highest rates happened on a Monday.

Cardiologist Dr Jack Laffan, who led the research at the Belfast Health and Social Care Trust, said: "We’ve found a strong statistical correlation between the start of the working week and the incidence of STEMI. This has been described before but remains a curiosity.

“The cause is likely multifactorial, however, based on what we know from previous studies, it is reasonable to presume a circadian element."

Professor Sir Nilesh Samani, medical director at the BHF, said: "Someone is admitted to hospital due to a life-threatening heart attack every five minutes in the UK, so it’s vital that research continues to shed light on how and why heart attacks happen.

"This study adds to evidence around the timing of particularly serious heart attacks, but we now need to unpick what it is about certain days of the week that makes them more likely. Doing so could help doctors better understand this deadly condition so we can save more lives in future."