Shoveling snow raises heart attack rates

Officially, winter is still over a month away, but much of southern Ontario got a blast of winter-like weather last night.

Hamilton, Halton, and Niagara residents woke up to up to 5- 15 centimetres of snow, and many people got in quite the workout while shovelling and cleaning off their cars.

The wet heavy snow is actually dangerous for some people to shovel though, including seniors.

Dr. Craig Ainsworth, a cardiologist at the Hamilton General Hospital, says after a snowfall like this, they see a jump of 15-20 percent in heart attacks.

“What we see in the first 24 hours or so the rates of heart attacks go up, and the rate of dying from heart related problems go up.”

It’s mostly men, middle aged or older…but not always.

“We see people in our cardiac care unit everyday in their 30’s and 40’s who are surprised. More often than not it’s folks who are middle aged to older who have risk factors for heart disease diabetes smoking high blood pressure those sorts of things.”

Shoveling heavy wet snow is more of a workout than people are used to doing.

“When you’re shoveling snow or throwing snow you drive your blood pressure up significantly. It’s like a stress test putting a big load on your heart.”

The doctor suggested a couple of things that could prevent heart issues: instead of lifting and throwing snow, push it and do smaller piles. And don’t go too hard. Take breaks when you need to.