Heart Attacks

Fear, excitement and emotional stress cause "sudden death" heart attacks that kill more than 450,000 Americans each year, according to the results of a study completed this week by researchers from the School of Public Health.

A separate study, also concluded this week at the School of Public Health, shows no correlation between coffee drinking and heart attacks, despite contradictory results obtained by previous researchers.

George B. Hutchison, professor of Epidemiology, said that after observing 649 men in Florida over a period of two years, he concluded that religion, occupation and even the use of cream and sugar are more likely to trigger a heart attack than coffee.

Bernard Lown, professor of Cardiology, who headed the sudden death study, said yesterday his team identified "transient risk factors" that stem from emotional response to fear and stress.

The emotional reaction appears physiologically as "ventricular fibrillation" which Lown said is "disorganized and erratic contractions of the heart which leads rapidly to death."

Lown said yesterday that he could not identify specific emotional factors that cause the reaction in otherwise healthy individuals.

"The response is unique to each individual. One person can live through years of bombing with no effect. In another case, something as trivial as the ringing of a bell provoked a fatal attack in a healthy young woman," Lown said.