News & Views

Healthcare Workers WARNING: New research is showing a relationship between chronic stress and heart disease

Heart health

W. Gifford-Jones MD & Diana Gifford-Jones

February 28, 2022

BY W. GIFFORD- JONES MD & DIANA GIFFORD-JONES

There has always been a lot of heart in the practice of medicine – literally and figuratively. Typically, the focus is on the beating heart of the patient, but has the pandemic, unlike any challenge to the medical profession before, impacted the hearts of front-line healthcare workers themselves?

Medicine is “A calling in which your heart will be exercised equally with your head.” These words of Sir William Osler, a founding figure of modern medicine, were a warning as much as a motivation. A contemporary of Osler, Dr Maude Abbott, a cardiac pathologist, was one of Canada’s earliest women in medicine. Her calling was challenged by refusal of entry to medical school. She was barred from entrance to McGill’s medical program due to her gender. Bishop’s College graduated her in 1894, but she was driven to be a doctor.

Are would-be doctors, nurses, and other healthcare professionals so keenly motivated today? Medicine requires emotional and physical fortitude; that is understood, but is there now a price to be paid in heart health?

Miners know that even with the best safety equipment, they are often working in dangerous environments. Bus drivers know the sedentary nature of their jobs can place them at increased risk for cardiovascular disease. Test pilots are probably most acutely aware that their jobs could kill them.

But do healthcare workers know the calculus? How are emerging trainees perceiving their future?

In 1945, the New England Journal of Medicine reported that “Physicians die of coronary-artery disease at the same age as the average person with the disease.” Since then, it would seem doctors got healthier. In pre-pandemic 2019, JAMA Network published a study showing the “Incidence of cardiovascular death was 52% lower among physicians than the general population.”

Medical careers have always involved long hours and stressful situations, but the pandemic has resulted in extreme exhaustion for many healthcare workers. According to Dr. Susan R. Bailey, the president of the American Medical Association. “A lot of physicians were hanging on by a thread from burnout before the pandemic even started.”

Now, new research is showing a relationship between chronic stress and heart disease. A study published last year in JAMA Psychiatry reported that people who suffered from four or more depressive symptoms were 20% more likely to experience cardiovascular disease or death.

What are some of these symptoms: Uncomfortable emotional stress that persists, situations that generate a sense of dread or anxiety, traumatic life experiences. These may be the symptoms of patients with PTSD, anxiety disorders or depression, but they also read like the everyday work environment of our frontline healthcare workers.

Time will tell the outcome, but this research suggests that pandemic-era workers in the health sector are at increased risk of heart disease.

Doctors should know the benefits of prevention, but they are trained in treatment.

So, a word of advice: for many, chronic stress is not going to evaporate anytime soon. In the interim, the best way to take care of the heart is to arm that most precious of muscles with the ingredients needed for long-term performance. That is, regular exercise and rest, balanced nutrition, and a daily maintenance routine.

Keep arteries clear of plaque build up. Vitamin C in high doses combined with lysine lowers cholesterol levels for a safe, natural defense force against heart disease and an alternative to drugs.

Next week, a refresher to readers about the Omega 3 Index, a way to measure your personal risk factors for heart disease, and later this month, a personal celebration of a quarter century since a life-threatening heart attack.

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Written By W. Gifford-Jones MD & Diana Gifford-Jones

Dr. W. Gifford-Jones, MD is a graduate of the University of Toronto and the Harvard Medical School. He trained in general surgery at Strong Memorial Hospital, University of Rochester, Montreal General Hospital, McGill University and in Gynecology at Harvard. His storied medical career began as a general practitioner, ship’s surgeon, and hotel doctor. For more than 40 years, he specialized in gynecology, devoting his practice to the formative issues of women’s health. In 1975, he launched his weekly medical column that has been published by national and local Canadian and U.S. newspapers. Today, the readership remains over seven million. His advice contains a solid dose of common sense and he never sits on the fence with controversial issues. He is the author of nine books including, “The Healthy Barmaid”, his autobiography “You’re Going To Do What?”, “What I Learned as a Medical Journalist”, and “90+ How I Got There!” Many years ago, he was successful in a fight to legalize heroin to help ease the pain of terminal cancer patients. His foundation at that time donated $500,000 to establish the Gifford-Jones Professorship in Pain Control and Palliative Care at the University of Toronto Medical School. At 93 years of age he rappelled from the top of Toronto’s City Hall (30 stories) to raise funds for children with a life-threatening disease through the Make-a-Wish Foundation. Diana Gifford-Jones, the daughter of W. Gifford-Jones, MD, Diana has extensive global experience in health and healthcare policy. Diana is Special Advisor with The Aga Khan University, which operates 2 quaternary care hospitals and numerous secondary hospitals, medical centres, pharmacies, and laboratories in South Asia and Africa. She worked for ten years in the Human Development sectors at the World Bank, including health policy and economics, nutrition, and population health. For over a decade at The Conference Board of Canada, she managed four health-related executive networks, including the Roundtable on Socio-Economic Determinants of Health, the Centre for Chronic Disease Prevention and Management, the Canadian Centre for Environmental Health, and the Centre for Health System Design and Management. Her master’s degree in public policy at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government included coursework at Harvard Medical School. She is also a graduate of Wellesley College. She has extensive experience with Canadian universities, including at Carleton University, where she was the Executive Director of the Global Academy. She lived and worked in Japan for four years and speaks Japanese fluently. Diana has the designation as a certified Chartered Director from The Directors College, a joint venture of The Conference Board of Canada and McMaster University. She has recently published a book on the natural health philosophy of W. Gifford-Jones, called No Nonsense Health – Naturally!

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