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American Morning
'House Call'
Aired October 31, 2003 - 09:40 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: A new study says caring for your grandkids could give you a heart attack, literally. Making a house call this morning with our story is our medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta in Atlanta.
And you're serious as a heart attack, of course, right, Sanjay?
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, take the story in a little bit of context. It's obviously hard for even young parents to take care of young children, and even harder for grandparents. I think that's pretty obvious. But what are the consequences of this sort of thing? That was the subject of a new study actually came out in the American Journal of Public Health, trying to figure out how much stress, how much wear and tear does this actually put on a grandparent? Some of the results of the study did look specifically at heart disease, and looked at the number of hours that a grandparent might take care of their grandchildren. Nine hours or more per week led to an increased heart attack risk of about 55 percent. Incidentally, this was for grandmothers primarily, not grandfathers, as well.
This came out of a large study; about 120,000 women were originally looked at. When they found women who specifically were taking care of their grandparents for that period of time. It's a little bit of a difficult link to make there. But they are finding that there's obviously stress. There's wear and tear, and more importantly, there's what they call a displacement of not doing the things to care for yourself. Going to your doctor's visits, taking care of your medications, things like that, which might be part of the reason, as well -- Miles.
O'BRIEN: So difficult to separate the two, which is more of a factor, the children causing stress, or the person not taking enough care of themselves.
GUPTA: Well, yes, you know, it's interesting, because stress and heart disease has been something that's almost like the Holy Grail in the study of cardiology. People actually trying to make that link for years, decades now.
But everyone sort of knows anecdotally, it's probably true the more stress you have, the more likely you are to have heart problems. But they haven't been able to conclusively prove that, where on the other hand, not taking care of yourself because you have to spend so much time because you're caring for a young child, that's a little bit easier to prove, and I think that's why people are sort of hanging their hat on that. Not going to your doctor's visits, not taking your medications as readily, perhaps not eating as well, eating your children's food or foods like your children, as opposed to healthy foods for yourself, things like that are all probably factors as well, Miles.
O'BRIEN: Of course, I'm sure the feelings of self-worth and love that a grandmother gets out of this might, you know, balance against all of this.
GUPTA: You know, it's really interesting that you bring that point up, because a couple of things about that, as well. A couple studies say the more you play with your grandkids, that's a good activity, it's good exercise. That's probably true.
But this particular study made a point of saying it didn't matter if the grandmother found spending time rewarding or stressful. Either way, it didn't make no difference in terms of the increased risk of potential heart attacks. Even if you're enjoying it, you've still got to take time to care for yourself, because you could be placing yourself at increased risk after some of these problems.
O'BRIEN: OK, let's hope some folks were listening to that out there and enjoy their time with their grandkids.
GUPTA: Take them trick-or-treating tonight.
O'BRIEN: That's right. That's a good idea. All right, Sanjay Gupta, have a good weekend. Thank you very much.
GUPTA: You, too.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired October 31, 2003 - 09:40 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: A new study says caring for your grandkids could give you a heart attack, literally. Making a house call this morning with our story is our medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta in Atlanta.
And you're serious as a heart attack, of course, right, Sanjay?
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, take the story in a little bit of context. It's obviously hard for even young parents to take care of young children, and even harder for grandparents. I think that's pretty obvious. But what are the consequences of this sort of thing? That was the subject of a new study actually came out in the American Journal of Public Health, trying to figure out how much stress, how much wear and tear does this actually put on a grandparent? Some of the results of the study did look specifically at heart disease, and looked at the number of hours that a grandparent might take care of their grandchildren. Nine hours or more per week led to an increased heart attack risk of about 55 percent. Incidentally, this was for grandmothers primarily, not grandfathers, as well.
This came out of a large study; about 120,000 women were originally looked at. When they found women who specifically were taking care of their grandparents for that period of time. It's a little bit of a difficult link to make there. But they are finding that there's obviously stress. There's wear and tear, and more importantly, there's what they call a displacement of not doing the things to care for yourself. Going to your doctor's visits, taking care of your medications, things like that, which might be part of the reason, as well -- Miles.
O'BRIEN: So difficult to separate the two, which is more of a factor, the children causing stress, or the person not taking enough care of themselves.
GUPTA: Well, yes, you know, it's interesting, because stress and heart disease has been something that's almost like the Holy Grail in the study of cardiology. People actually trying to make that link for years, decades now.
But everyone sort of knows anecdotally, it's probably true the more stress you have, the more likely you are to have heart problems. But they haven't been able to conclusively prove that, where on the other hand, not taking care of yourself because you have to spend so much time because you're caring for a young child, that's a little bit easier to prove, and I think that's why people are sort of hanging their hat on that. Not going to your doctor's visits, not taking your medications as readily, perhaps not eating as well, eating your children's food or foods like your children, as opposed to healthy foods for yourself, things like that are all probably factors as well, Miles.
O'BRIEN: Of course, I'm sure the feelings of self-worth and love that a grandmother gets out of this might, you know, balance against all of this.
GUPTA: You know, it's really interesting that you bring that point up, because a couple of things about that, as well. A couple studies say the more you play with your grandkids, that's a good activity, it's good exercise. That's probably true.
But this particular study made a point of saying it didn't matter if the grandmother found spending time rewarding or stressful. Either way, it didn't make no difference in terms of the increased risk of potential heart attacks. Even if you're enjoying it, you've still got to take time to care for yourself, because you could be placing yourself at increased risk after some of these problems.
O'BRIEN: OK, let's hope some folks were listening to that out there and enjoy their time with their grandkids.
GUPTA: Take them trick-or-treating tonight.
O'BRIEN: That's right. That's a good idea. All right, Sanjay Gupta, have a good weekend. Thank you very much.
GUPTA: You, too.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
