Dec 27, 2016 10:27 AM EST By Audri Taylors, UniversityHerald Reporter

Previous studies from the US has already suggested that the Christmas season has been associated to more deaths or instances of heart attacks but thought that it was due to the winter season, where death rates are naturally higher.

In the study, the team analyzed 25 years' worth of death records between December 25 and the first week of January during a summer in the southern hemisphere. In a country where Christmas is being celebrated in summer like New Zealand, the study has shown a 4.2 percent increase in heart-related deaths.

These results which were published in the Journal of the American Heart Association now conclude that it's not the colder temperatures that cause the increase in the cases of heart attack during Christmas. Although the Australian researchers cannot pinpoint yet the cause of this spike in cardiac arrest, previous studies are pointing to two possible reasons.

Lead author and researcher at the Centre for Health Policy at the University of Melbourne, Josh Knight, said that the first reason is that people normally refuse to see medical care during the holidays because of the busy schedules especially when they are on vacation and are spending the holidays somewhere else where they are not very much familiar of the new surroundings. Second is that people have the tendency to either delay death or rush it up because they are considering the holidays which they deem special.

Other possible reasons behind these heart related deaths include people's habits during the holidays like their fatty diet and alcohol consumption, as well as the effect of excessive stress on their health.

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