With the new snowfall in the area, doctors are reminding people to take some precautions if you pick up a shovel.
"Avoid shoveling immediately after you wake,” said Dr. Zafar Shamoon of the Rochester General Hospital Emergency Department. “Most heart attacks occur in the morning when the blood is more prone to clotting. Don't eat a heavy meal. If you eat a heavy meal, what happens is, the blood is diverted from the heart to the stomach."
Dr. Shamoon says people with known heart disease should talk to their physician before shoveling or doing any strenuous activity, especially in the cold weather, but others aren’t immune from problems.
"That's what, unfortunately, we see a lot of times are patients who don't know they have heart disease and they start doing these activities where they don't think they're at risk, and come in with a heart attack, or in the worst-case scenario, with cardiac arrest."
He says coffee, smoking an alcohol should be avoided if you're shoveling. Those stimulants can elevate blood pressure and heart rates.
