Sir, – The annual discussion involving the matter of the summer to wintertime clock adjustment has staged its usual appearance, but a recent article in a medical journal has uncovered some interesting facts.
This dealt with a purely statistical review of the number of heart attacks across Britain in the immediate aftermath of the usual March and October hourly switch.
It found that the daily average number of cardiac attacks recorded across Britain on the Monday following the October switch-back, giving an extra hour’s sleep, fell by some 25 per cent, whereas the corresponding daily figure for heart attacks across the island following the “going forward” by an hour in March was greater by 21 per cent .
These figures were adduced in reference to research into the relationships between sleep and cardiac health, and as the figures involved represented the entire population of Britain, as reported to their central statistics office, the “sample” is obviously enormous and self-evidently significant.
Worth taking into account, I suggest, in the light of a debate as to whether a change should be made in our seasonal time-switch. – Yours, etc,
DAVID GRANT,
Waterford.