Surely this is a great opportunity for some entrepreneur to market a crises pill that will help prevent heart attacks during crises. Or maybe there is some potential crises faith healer out there whose talents are as yet unrealised.
--- Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
> Financial Times - February 26, 2008
>
> Bank crises kill, says study
> By Clive Cookson, Science Editor
>
> A global banking crisis would kill tens of thousands
> of people
> through heart attacks brought on by stress and
> anxiety, Cambridge
> university researchers will warn today.
>
> David Stuckler and colleagues have carried out what
> they say is the
> first study relating banking crises to mortality.
> Their statistical
> analysis of 40 years of data from the World Bank and
> World Health
> Organisation concludes that a "system-wide" crisis
> increases deaths
> from heart disease by an average 6.4 per cent in
> wealthy nations and
> more in developing countries.
>
> The Cambridge researchers say that in Britain
> between 1,300 and 5,100
> people could die if "a significant proportion of
> banks" suffered
> crises similar to that at Northern Rock. Interviews
> with people
> queueing to take their money out of Northern Rock
> last September
> showed that they suffered stress similar to that
> experienced in
> earthquakes, wars or even terrorist incidents.
>
> "Our findings show that financial crises aren't just
> about money -
> they also impact on people's health," said Dr
> Stuckler, a social
> epidemiologist. "This report shows that containing
> hysteria and
> preventing widespread panic is important not only to
> stop these
> incidents leading to a systemic bank crisis but also
> to prevent
> potentially thousands of heart disease deaths."
>
> Commenting on the study, June Davison of the British
> Heart Foundation
> said: "Intense emotional stress has long been
> associated with
> triggering heart attacks in those people with
> existing coronary heart
> disease. However, we still need to further
> understand the mechanisms
> of how this may happen."
>
> The World Bank database includes 117 systemic bank
> crises, defined as
> episodes in which a significant proportion of a
> country's banks fail
> or their assets are exhausted. Five of these
> affected high-income
> Organisation for Economic Co-operation and
> Development countries -
> Spain in 1977, Norway in 1987 and Finland, Sweden
> and Japan in 1991 -
> but the vast majority were in the developing world.
>
> The researchers related the crises to male
> cardiovascular death rates
> from the WHO Global Mortality Database. Their
> statistical models
> attempted to correct for potential "confounding
> variables", such as
> the fact that an economic downturn and financial
> uncertainty may
> increase mortality rates regardless of whether there
> is a banking
> crisis.
>
> The results show a brief surge in cardiac deaths
> every time there is
> a systemic bank failure. The effect is more
> pronounced in developing
> countries, said Dr Stuckler, perhaps because people
> are more
> concerned about losing everything than their
> counterparts in wealthy
> countries with stronger financial and health safety
> nets.
>
> The report, published in the journal Globalisation
> and Health,
> suggests that the elderly would be at particular
> risk of heart
> attacks in the event of a widespread banking
> meltdown. Older people
> are much more likely to feel threatened by risks to
> their accumulated
> savings and they are the most sensitive to acute
> stress.
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