By ANDREW FRATTAROLI

Heart disease is among the leading killers in our nation and claims the lives of over 600,000 people every year. This is due to a host of factors including physical, dietary, and lifestyle factors (such as smoking). This has been well documented, but now, there is a new theory that emotional pain can cause heart related death, according to an article from The New York Times, written by Anahad O’Connor.

The article discusses a new book called “Heart: A History.” The author of the book has studied the heart his whole life and believes that people need to focus on how the emotional heart reacts with the biological heart.

The article is somewhat directionless as the majority of the article discusses the history of medical procedures relating to the heart and how technological advances have made surviving with heart disease more manageable. However, the point that I believe the article is trying to make is the connection between emotional pain and how it relates to heart failure and disease

It lists mostly anecdotal evidence without much scientific backing. It attempts to reference a study done in 1948, which is incredibly outdated considering new scientific studies have been done since then. Stress is definitely a factor that goes into heart disease but is it the most important?

The article gives no evidence to support that claim and seems to be focused more on promoting the new book than it is making a point. Perhaps the biggest takeaway from this article, like many articles with insufficient evidence, is that the topic needs to be studied more.