Cold weather in the tropics increases heart attack risk, Singapore scientists find

Scientists have long known that changes in temperature affect heart attack rates

Now, a team of researchers has investigated how the narrow temperature range of the tropical climate affects the incidence of a specific type of myocardial infarction (the medical term for heart attack) in Singapore

Co-author Professor Marcus Ong, Director of the Health Services and Systems Research Programme and Prehospital Emergency Research Centre (PERC), Duke-NUS Faculty of Medicine, said: "Through 10 years of national data collection, we have found strong evidence showed that a 1°C drop in ambient temperature increases the population's risk of some type of acute myocardial infarction by 12%

"Furthermore, people aged 65 and above appear to be more susceptible to cold weather than younger adults," added Professor Ong, who is also a senior consultant at the emergency department at Singapore General Hospital

The study, conducted in collaboration with Singapore's National Environment Agency (NEA), analysed daily patient records from the Singapore Myocardial Infarction Registry

The researchers collected 60,643 NSTEMI reports between 2009 and 2018

Lower ambient temperatures were independently associated with an increased risk of NSTEMI within 10 days of cooler temperatures

"Our study found that even in relatively warm parts of the world, lower ambient temperatures can increase the risk of heart attack," said one of the study's first authors, Dr.

"There are several individual-level risk factors for cardiovascular disease, but none are as widespread as weather patterns," said environmental epidemiologist Dr.

Longer-term further studies are needed to confirm this result