Former coach Joe Paterno was only months into his forced retirement, following allegations of sexual abuse within the Penn State sports programs, when he died. The official cause of Joe Paterno’s death was lung cancer. However, the trauma of recent months may very well have helped speed his demise.
Stress can make sickness worse, causing immune system overreaction and inflammation, which in turn affects the resilience of your heart and your lungs. It is the reason spouses sometimes die within days or weeks of each other.
According to The Daily Beast:
“In medical textbooks, it’s listed as takottsubo cardiomyopathy. But its nickname is much more evocative: Broken Heart Syndrome.”
Some in the medical community object to the diagnosis in Joe Paterno’s case, asserting that what he died of was cancer. But cancer itself is a disease that is only poorly understood, with causes that can range from stress to obesity to lack of vitamin D. It may even be an ancient survival mechanism, released under specific conditions, which in the modern era has become extremely dangerous to its host.