Times: Watch Out for the Happy-New-Year-Heart-Attack and Don't Get Run Over

Wishing everyone a Happy New Year.

Just watch out for that coronary and the don't get hit by that bus.

From the Times' Well Blog:

...Why the number of heart-attack deaths should surge so significantly during the holidays still is not clear, although cardiologists have some well-founded guesses. “We suspect there is often an inappropriate delay in seeking medical attention” at this time of year, says Dr. Robert A. Kloner, a professor of medicine at the University of Southern California, a cardiologist at Good Samaritan Hospital and the lead author of both the 2004 study of deaths in Los Angeles County and the accompanying editorial. “People ignore the pain in their chest,” perhaps because they don’t wish to disrupt the festivities or they misinterpret the ache as overindulgence, Dr. Kloner says. By the time they get to an emergency room, it’s too late to save them...more...

From the Times' Health Hazards column, "Beware the Walk Home on New Year’s Eve":

Driving and drinking don’t mix. But walking home drunk after a New Year’s Eve party can also be dangerous.

Studies have shown that more pedestrians are killed on the first day of the year than on any other day, and many of those killed have elevated blood alcohol levels.

And as Dr. Thomas J. Esposito, a trauma surgeon at Loyola University Health System in Maywood, Ill., recently noted, many drivers are also impaired on New Year’s Eve.

“Any degree of alcohol increases the chances your judgment or coordination can be impaired, whether on New Year’s Eve or any other day,” Dr. Esposito said in an interview. “Alcohol is associated with 50 percent of the injuries we see in the emergency rooms.”

Dr. Esposito recommended that revelers who are drinking stay in one place, call a cab, or go home with a sober “designated walker.” Walking in a large group and wearing lightly colored clothing may also decrease the risk of accidents.