Cardiologist Dr. Sandeep Jauhar explores the connection between emotional health and heart health in his new book, “Heart: A History.” In addition to chronicling the history of cardiovascular medicine, Dr. Jauhar asserts that the cardiology field needs to pay closer attention to the emotional factors, like poverty, stress, and income inequality that can influence heart disease.
The book introduces readers to a cast of cardiology pioneers, including Daniel Hale Williams, the African American doctor who performed the world’s first open heart surgery in Chicago; C. Walton Lillehei, who connected a patient’s circulatory system to a healthy donor’s, which led to the creation of the heart-lung machine; and Wilson Greatbatch, who invented the pacemaker – by accident.
While heart disease is still the leading killer or adults in the U.S., mortality after a heart attack has dropped tenfold since the late 1950s. The landmark Framingham Heart Study, started in 1948, which followed thousands of Americans identified important cardiovascular risk factors like cholesterol, blood pressure and smoking – but, importantly, it didn’t include emotional health risk factors. As we know, since then, other studies have shown that people who suffer from chronic work or relationship stress are statistically more prone to heart attacks and strokes.
Read reviews and purchase the book here.