The shock of getting a pink slip or the chronic stress of watching a 401(k) account decline can whittle away at people's health.

For one patient of Dr. Steve Newman, losing his job was enough to kill him. After a couple of weeks of trying to make ends meet, he suffered a fatal heart attack, said Newman, a cardiologist with the Heart Center of North Texas.

"Stress is one of those things that keeps eating at people," he said. "Stress really works on the heart."

As the economic downturn continues with no end in sight, stress is affecting the nation's health, triggering colds, shingles and more serious illnesses. And it is expected to get worse as the pressure of the Christmas holidays hits home.

Months, even years, can pass before a traumatizing event leads to health problems. But for some, it happens quickly.

With stress cardiomyopathy, or broken heart syndrome, the surge of hormones after a traumatic event can literally stun the heart, Newman said. Patients arrive at the hospital with chest pains, shortness of breath and other signs of a heart attack, but no clogged arteries.

"Their arteries look normal, but their heart is not moving," he said. "Their heart is stunned due to this sudden stress on it."

Patients often recover and experience no permanent damage. But without treatment, others die because the heart becomes so weakened, according to a 2005 study published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

More often, years pass before the stress of the economy takes a toll on individuals, said Dr. M. Harvey Brenner, professor of social and behavioral sciences at the University of North Texas Health Science Center School of Public Health in Fort Worth.

A 1 percent increase in the unemployment rate could cause as many as 47,000 subsequent deaths, including 1,200 suicides and 26,000 heart attacks, said Brenner, who is also professor emeritus at Johns Hopkins’ Bloomberg School of Public Health, where he did much of his stress research.

Read the complete story at star-telegram.com