Monday is usually the day most people dread. Unfortunately, the first day of the week now has another strike against it.
According to a team of Scottish researchers, more people die from heart disease on Monday than any other day of the week.
The investigators attribute their findings in the Jan. 22 issue of the British Medical Journal to increased drinking over the weekend or to job-related stress.
However, while the study suggests an association between binge drinking and death from heart disease, it does not show increased drinking leads to death from heart disease, emphasized researchers.
To get at their findings, the researchers reviewed national death records from Scotland between 1986 and 1995.
Residents who died of heart disease were compared with a group who died of all other causes.
The team of researchers with the University of Glasgow in Scotland found that deaths from heart disease are 3.1 percent higher on Mondays compared with a daily average.
The number of deaths from heart disease on Mondays was particularly acute among those who died outside of hospitals and who had not previously been admitted to a hospital for treatment of heart disease.
People who had previously been admitted to a hospital "may be partly protected from sudden cardiac death by current treatment or may be more likely to seek medical help at the weekend because of familiarity with the symptoms," the authors explained.
The study results also show that Monday deaths were greatest in men and women younger than age 50.
Men under 65 also showed a greater number of deaths on Saturday and Sunday, possibly because they are the group most likely to drink heavily, researchers noted.
On the other hand, the lowest numbers of deaths from heart disease for both men and women under age 65 were noted on Tuesdays.