The Surprising Reason You're More Likely to Die on New Year's - East Idaho News
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The Surprising Reason You’re More Likely to Die on New Year’s

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178449351 2?  SQUARESPACE CACHEVERSION=1420124838419iStock/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) — Here’s a cheery fact to start off the New Year: You’re more likely to die on New Year’s than just about any other day of the year.

A 2010 University of California study found an increase of 42,325 deaths above and beyond what you’d normally expect during the week between Christmas and New Year’s.

The increase wasn’t attributed to car crashes or other kinds of accidents either. The causes for all that extra carnage were considered natural, ranging from heart failure to respiratory failure to cancer.

The researchers speculated that that flu, cold weather and substance abuse were also not responsible for the higher holiday death rates. More likely, overcrowding in emergency rooms and slower ambulance response were to blame.

That, or might be a simple coding error. It’s also possible a lot of death reports pile up in the in-boxes at hospitals and funeral homes and they all get entered at once at the last minute, the researchers theorized.

Either way, happy holiday!


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