A surprising reason your stroke risk may be higher

Now that it’s Memorial Day, I’m sure that — no matter what your plans are — you’ll be taking some time to remember the brave men and women who gave so much for our country.

And as today also marks the unofficial start to summer, hopefully the skies will be clear and you’ll get a chance to fire up the grill or get some sand in your shoes!

Of course, it’s been a crazy, cold, and wet spring so far. And you never know if you’re going to wake up to sweater weather, more rain and chilly temps, or a blast of summerlike humidity.

But while that kind of undependable weather might make planning outdoor activities difficult, it can also be the cause of a much more serious problem.

It’s no secret that the danger of suffering a heart attack or stroke increases when it’s really cold out. But some new research from the University of Michigan has found that extreme temperature swings, like those experienced in much of the country recently, can also do a number on your heart.

So, here’s what you need to know about these surprising findings that can help keep you from starting out the summer in the hospital instead of around the pool.

Weather whiplash

Temps in the east have been on a rollercoaster ride so far this spring.

Where I live, a 40-degree difference during a given day (which happened seven times in April) is no longer that surprising.

But to know what some really extreme weather is like, you’ll have to ask the folks in Alva, Oklahoma, or Dodge City, Kansas. In late April in both of those locales, temperatures fluctuated between being below freezing (28 degrees F in Dodge!) and record highs of 101 and 94, respectively. And those kinds of extremes were repeated all across Kansas and Oklahoma.

As the National Weather Service explains it, this sort of weather whiplash doesn’t happen during the summer months due to increased humidity, but it can strike without warning in the spring.

And as a result, something else can strike with no advance notice: a heart attack.

Michigan researchers have discovered that weather extremes (precisely these big changes in daily temps) are a likely predictor of how many people will land in the hospital due to heart attacks. In fact, they were able to even pinpoint that to a five percent higher risk for every 9 degrees that the temperature goes up and down in a day.

One explanation, they said, might be the constriction of blood vessels that can occur from a sudden chill.

That study, however, isn’t the first time such a connection has been made. Four years ago, Yale researchers found a similar risk pattern, only the deadly danger in that study was a stroke.

Lead author Dr. Judith Lichtman believes that “daily fluctuations in temperature (along with increased humidity) may actually be stressors.” And similar to the recent University of Michigan findings, the stroke risk found by the Yale scientists equaled around a 6 percent rise for every 5 degree fluctuation in daily weather.

Of course, there’s not much you can do to change the weather!

But if you’re at a higher risk of suffering a stroke (which increases if you have high blood pressure, diabetes, are overweight, and don’t get much exercise), Dr. Lichtman suggests that it’s a good idea to stay indoors during times of high humidity and when the temps swing from shivering to sweltering and vice versa.

And being that May is National Stroke Awareness Month, it’s also a good time to review the warning signs of a stroke.

The American Heart Association has created an acronym to help remember them. FAST stands for:

F – Face Drooping

A – Arm weakness

S – Speech difficulty

T – Time to call 911

Because whatever the weather is in your neck of the woods, it’s essential to know that the sooner a stroke victim gets medical help, the more likely they are to survive and recover.

“Big outdoor temp swings tied to heart attack risk” Dennis Thompson, March 1, 2018, WebMD, webmd.com