Hot days are bad for men’s hearts.
Warmer days often coincide with a higher level of air pollution, which can increase the risk of heart attacks by 5 percent, according to Belgian research presented at the European Society for Cardiology Congress in London on Sunday.
Cardiologists at the University Hospital in Brussels compared that country’s air pollution records to how many people were admitted to local hospitals for heart attacks, according to The Daily Mail.
They found that increases in nitric dioxide levels increased the risk of a serious heart attack by 5.1 percent.
“‘The detrimental impact of nitric dioxide exceeds that of fine particles and raises new public health concerns,” Dr. Jean-Froncois Argacha, a lead researcher on the study, told The Daily Mail.
They found that the uptick was only linked to men — with researchers noting that it could be because women represented less than 25 percent of the study.