More evidence has emerged this week that in many countries Monday is the peak day for heart attacks. A study, published in the British Medical Journal (20 January 2000) finds that in Scotland 19.2% more men under the age of 50 die from coronary heart disease (CHD) on a Monday than on any other day of the week, as do 20% more women in the same age group.

James Chalmers, of the Information and Statistics Division of the National Health Service in Scotland, and colleagues, collated these newest results from ten years' worth of Scottish Morbidity Records gathered between 1986 and 1995. They found an excess of Monday deaths, particularly of those who had not previously been hospitalized for coronary heart disease and of those who had died outside hospital.

However, there was no consistent trend among patients dying from CHD in hospital or among those being treated for the disease outside hospital. "This group may be partly protected from sudden cardiac death by current treatment", the researchers comment, "or may be more likely to seek medical help at the weekend because of familiarity with the symptoms."

This work, which overall shows there to be 3.1% more CHD deaths on Mondays, is the latest in a very long line of research showing that Monday is a dark day for health and happiness. Similar statistics to the Scottish findings have previously emerged from other countries such as Russia, Germany and the US, and Monday has also been shown to be the peak day for suicides (as immortalized in the Boomtown Rats' song 'Tell Me Why I Don't Like Mondays'). But, as yet, no one knows why.