April is the month that Japanese workers are most likely to die suddenly, as the start of the nation's business year is believed to cause more stress-related deaths than any other month, according to a Kyoto University study group.

Takashi Kawamura, head of the university's Center for Student Health, found that during the seven years since 1989, April saw the largest number of cases -- 34 -- of such illnesses as myocardial infarction and cerebral hemorrhage that led to death within 24 hours.

December had the lowest number of deaths with 13. The study, submitted to a recent meeting in Tokyo of the Japan Association of Medical Sciences, found 264 such deaths out of some 200,000 workers surveyed during those seven years.

By days of the week, sudden deaths occurred most on Sundays with 53 cases, followed by Saturdays with 39 cases. Only 20 percent of such deaths occurred during work hours on weekdays, according to the study.

In contrast to the high risk of sudden death among the elderly during the cold winter months, working-age people were more affected by changes in their living environment, the study suggests.

"In addition to the changes they themselves experience at work at the beginning of the business year, April is also the month when the biggest changes occur in family life, such as school transfers for children," Kawamura said, adding that stress from those changes may have led to the large number of sudden deaths during the month.