Research says a biological marker for stress found in human hair may serve as a predictor of heart attacks. Stan Van Uum from University of Western Ontario has found the first direct link between stress and heart attacks.
He measured cortisol levels in the human hair. The stress hormone accumulates in the hair and can be used as a biological marker to measure stress levels leading up to a heart attack.
Dr. Uum says his results only apply to men right now but he will next test his theory on women to see if there is a connection between stress and heart attacks there as well.
“There’s always been suspicion between the relation of stress and heart attacks but it’s difficult to measure that. We can use the hair like rings of a tree to look back one, two or three months to assess what the stress level was like before the heart attack.” — Stan Van Uum, lead researcher at University of Western Ontario
