A new study suggests that the emotional stress fans feel after a loss may trigger fatal heart attacks, especially in people who already have heart disease. Stress generates the so-called fight-or-flight response, which causes sharp upticks in heart rate and blood pressure that can strain the heart.
For people with heart disease -- or for those who are at risk due to factors such as obesity, smoking, and diabetes -- such strain can prove harmful, if not fatal.
In the study, which was published Monday in the journal Clinical Cardiology, researchers analyzed death records in Los Angeles County for the two weeks after the 1980 and 1984 Super Bowls, both of which featured teams from Los Angeles. (The game days were included.) Then, as a control, the researchers looked at the same data from the corresponding days in the intervening years.
In 1980, when the Pittsburgh Steelers staged a fourth-quarter comeback to beat the underdog L.A. Rams, heart-related deaths shot up 15% among men and 27% among women in the subsequent two weeks, compared with the same period in 1981 through 1983.
There was also a significant increase in deaths among people ages 65 and older, the study found.
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