The present study analyzed the medical records of all adult consecutive patients in the past 12-year period at the cardiac surgery unit in our tertiary-care university hospital. Our analyses revealed that the monthly incidence rate of diabetes, smoking, and elderly patients exhibited seasonal variation. Non-elderly patients with diabetes and/or smoking showed a peak incidence during the winter, whereas heart surgery in elderly patients without diabetes and smoking was most frequently required in the summer. Concomitant occurrence of diabetes and smoking had an additive effect on the incidence rate of the requirement for cardiac surgery, while the simultaneous presence of older age and diabetes or smoking eliminated the seasonal variation. Since the standard practice at our institution is to avoid waiting lists longer than five days, the seasonal trends observed in the present study accurately reflect the worsening and exacerbation of cardiovascular diseases requiring surgical interventions.
One of the main findings of the present study was a significant elevation of the incidence of patients with diabetes during the coldest months of the year. The sinusoidal seasonal trend suggested that the relative risk for patients with diabetes undergoing cardiac surgery during the winter period is almost 20% higher than that in the summer (Fig. 1 and Table 1). In patients with diabetes, hyperglycemia leads to endothelial dysfunction, resulting in low-grade inflammatory, prothrombotic, proliferative, and vasoconstrictive processes [28]. These mechanisms may converge and lead to hypertension, atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease, and heart failure [2, 3, 29–31]. Hypertension may be worsened in a cold environment [5, 32–36], elevating the myocardial workload and myocardial oxygen demand, or exacerbating functional valve insufficiencies. In addition to these mechanisms, viral infections [37] and/or vitamin deficiency [38] may also be involved. This seasonality is reflected in the high incidence rate of type 1 [37, 39] and T2DM [40, 41] during the coldest months. In agreement with previous findings [36], the MAP at admission was significantly higher the present T2DM cohort in January than July over the 12-year study period (Table S2). Severe manifestation of all these pathologies requires surgical intervention more frequently during winter for coronary and heart valve diseases.
The incidence rate of smoking in patients without T2DM or old age was lower than those with T2DM alone in our population. Since the seasonal changes were similar in smoking patients and patients with T2DM only, the relative peak-to-peak seasonal variability reached 34% (Fig. 1 and Table 1). Similar to T2DM, smoking is also characterized by a blunted response to endothelium-dependent vasodilators due to a diminished bioavailability of nitric oxide [42, 43]. Therefore, the mechanisms also triggered by endothelial dysfunction and subsequent elevated vascular tone may be responsible for the seasonal changes in the incidence of smoking patients in the cardiac surgery population. Common pathophysiological processes in T2DM and smoking responsible for the periodicity in their incidence rates were confirmed by the additive effect of these factors, as it is also reflected in the MAP in the coldest season (Table S2). Therefore, the relative peak-to-peak seasonal variability reached more than 100% in smoking patients with diabetes (Fig. 2 and Table 1).
A further significant seasonal variability in the cardiac surgery cohort was observed for elderly patients without T2DM or smoking with peak-to-peak seasonal variability > 50% (Fig. 1 and Table 1). In contrast with smoking and T2DM patients, the incidence rate of elderly patients peaked in summer. This opposite trend in mortality may be attributed to compromised elasticity of large conductive arteries [44]. Stiffening of the large arteries makes elderly people susceptible to hypovolemia and hypotension [45]. The significantly lower MAP observed in July compared with January (Table S2) is in agreement with previous findings, demonstrating that exacerbation of symptoms is expected to be more frequent during the warmest season.
Interestingly, seasonal variability disappeared if aging was associated with diabetes or smoking (Fig. 2). The lack of seasonality in these comorbidities may be attributed to the superposition of two sinusoidal waves of aging and diabetes or smoking. Since these waves have similar a period but opposite phases, the periodicity is eliminated in the resultant relative incidence rate. While the lack of season-dependent periodicity in these patients mimics an invariable monthly incidence rate, these patients are still exposed to both individual risk factors of aging, diabetes, or smoking.
There was no evidence for seasonal changes in the incidence rate of specific heart disease (i.e., aortic stenosis, mitral insufficiency, or coronary artery disease) for the whole population. Seasonal variation may be related to peripheral vasculature sensitivity to temperature changes rather than the type of cardiac disease. This suggests that diabetes, smoking, and aging are the primary season-dependent factors regardless of the nature of heart pathology. Gender and BMI do not directly affect the peripheral vasculature, as these factors exhibited no seasonal appearance.
An important feature of our findings is related to local climate. Hungary is situated in East-Central Europe and has four seasons with a continental climate. The Hungarian Meteorological Service calculated the average monthly temperature from daily averages, which varied between 0.7°C (33.3°F) in January and 23.1°C (73.6°F) in July during the 12-year study period in our region (Fig. 3). Our findings may represent the seasonal changes of cardiovascular comorbidities of diabetes, smoking, and aging in the temperate climate zone of the world where the majority of the human population resides.