Why should a C-level executive be concerned?
We’re very aggressive in our program about looking for cardiovascular disease, and we find more problems than risk factors would necessarily predict in executives at all levels. And I think part of it has to be stress. It’s hard to quantify stress, but I think stress is something of an X factor. When you look at the risk of high blood pressure or exercise or diet or weight or cholesterol in an individual, then see that it’s worse in somebody who’s carrying the weight of a company around his or her neck, you can’t help but feel that there’s some kind of stress multiple, if you will, of a given set of risks. So the heads of these companies — and not just the officers but also the senior managers that have a lot of responsibility —end up taking some hits as a result of it. All the things that we screen for, as critical and prevalent as they are, tend to have few or no symptoms associated with them until late in the process. Two-thirds of women and half of men who die from a heart attack h
