Study Links Quake to Rise in Deaths by Heart Disease

The stress of an earthquake can kill people with heart disease, according to a study released Thursday.

On Jan. 17, 1994, the day of the Northridge earthquake, the Los Angeles County coroner’s office recorded 49 deaths due to heart disease, according to Jonathan Leor and Robert A. Kloner, cardiologists at Los Angeles’ Good Samaritan Hospital.

In the days just before the quake, however, the office recorded an average 15 heart disease-related deaths per day. And there was no similar “marked increase” on Jan. 17 in 1991, 1992 or 1993, the study found.

The statistics suggest cardiovascular disease “might be triggered by a certain factor, like an emotional or physical stress,” Kloner said in an interview Thursday.

A few days after the Northridge earthquake, the number of deaths due to heart disease dipped below the average of 15. That, Kloner said, suggests that “people who are at-risk for heart disease and who would have died later that week actually died a few days earlier” because of stress from the earthquake.

Kloner said he and Leor were inspired to conduct the study because “people assumed that this was the truth, but many studies that looked at the issue didn’t agree with each other,” he said.

The researchers will present their findings Monday at a seminar in San Diego.

A couple of months ago, Leor and Kloner presented a different study showing that hospital admissions for heart attacks increased by 35% the week after the Northridge earthquake compared to the week before the quake.