Stories about poor James Gandolfini not good for HA

[Freaked]

Every news outlet reporting on James Gandolfini's passing also talks about basically every cause of heart-related death, since they haven't really established his exact cause of death yet, and they know everyone worries about these things. Cbs basically said 'anyone with or without risk factors can drop dead at any time and there's no predicting it'. Great. In fact it said that most sudden cardiac deaths occur in people without known risk factors, which I'm pretty sure is just incorrect in some way.

Argh.

Anyway, RIP James Gandolfini; he suffered the fate so many of us fear, but at least he lived a full life not ruled by fear.

Also remind me not to have a heart attack in wherever he was in Italy; it said help didn't arrive for forty minutes.

[joelhall]

This is the problem with the media - sensationalism sells! Hearts do not simply stop without there being a problem. When the news reports 'no risk factors' they pretty much mean 'undiagnosed disease', or you read the story and find they simply haven't had a post-mortem yet. As for Gandolfini, I haven't read anything about it, but judging by his size and age, I'd suspect it was an MI.

[Masqued]

The media drive everything up. So many awareness campaigns and celebrity deaths is not helpful to people with HA.

[Female healthanxiety]

Oh was going to say that this made me feel so anxious last night - I could not relax -- It's such a sad thing to happen, but me having such a bad HA, it only makes me worse ;-(((((((((((((((