A population based study of Ramadan fasting and acute coronary syndromes.

S ustained fasting over a period is a feature of several of the world’s great religions. One of the five fundamental rituals of Islam is fasting during the month of Ramadan. Muslims neither eat nor drink anything from dawn until sunset. Fasting may have negative effects on cardiac patients because of the limited time allowed for food intake and the heavy physical worship that is performed after a heavy meal, as well as the inability to take any medications during fasting, which may be essential for the patients. Despite the fact that most clinicians worldwide treat Muslim patients, data on the incidence of patients presenting with acute coronary syndromes (ACS) in relation to fasting during Ramadan are lacking. Hence, the purpose of this study is to investigate whether Ramadan fasting has a negative effect on the incidence of presentation with ACS such as acute myocardial infarction (AMI) and unstable angina (UA).