Why Hypochondria Can Be Deadly, and How Newer Treatments Help

Views: 1838

To describe the destructive effects of intense health anxiety to his young doctors in training at Columbia University Irving Medical Center in New York City, psychiatrist Brian Fallon likes to quote 19th-century English psychiatrist Henry Maudsley: “The sorrow which has no vent in tears may make other organs weep.”

That weeping from other parts of the body may come in the form of a headache that, in the mind of its sufferer, is flagging a brain tumor. It may be a rapid heartbeat a person wrongly interprets as a brewing heart attack. The fast beats may be driven by overwhelming, incapacitating anxiety.

Hal Rosenbluth, a businessman in the Philadelphia area, says he used to seek medical care for the slightest symptom. In his recent book Hypochondria, he describes chest pains, breathing difficulties and vertigo that came on after he switched from a daily diabetes drug to a weekly one. He ended up going to the hospital by ambulance for blood tests, multiple electrocardiograms, a chest x-ray, a cardiac catheterization and an endoscopy, all of which were normal. Rosenbluth’s worries about glucose levels had led him to push for the new diabetes drug, and its side effects were responsible for many of his cardiac symptoms. His own extreme anxiety had induced doctors to order the extra care.

On supporting science journalism

If you’re enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing . By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.

Recent medical research has shown that hypochondria is as much a real illness as depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Hypochondria can, in extreme cases, leave people unable to hold down a job or make it impossible for them to leave the house, cook meals, or care for themselves and their families. Recent medical research has shown that hypochondria is as much a real illness as depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.

This work, scientists hope, will convince doctors who believed the disorder was some kind of character flaw that their patients are truly ill—and in danger. A study published just last year showed that people with hypochondria have higher death rates than similar but nonafflicted people, and the leading nonnatural cause of death was suicide. It was relatively rare, … Read More