Can someone be literally scared to death?
Dear Cecil: It’s a staple of ghost stories, horror films, spooky TV shows, and creepy books. And I suppose for someone with a heart condition, it may well be true. But can a young, healthy person be literally scared to death, without any physical cause? — Rebecca S., Seattle For once fiction writers and doctors agree: it’s possible to die of fright, or for that matter grief, anger, joy, or just about any other intense emotion. Most victims are older, and likely in precarious health to start with, but a few are young–in some cases really young. One British kid, in what is surely a mother’s worst nightmare, was reportedly so freaked out by a visit to the dentist in 1970 that she died of a heart attack at age four. Sudden death due to stress has been reported throughout history. Physician George Engel, in a 1971 review in Annals of Internal Medicine, notes that in the New Testament the apostle Peter tells Ananias, “You have lied not to man but to God,” whereupon Ananias and later his wif
