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“If this has happened to you, you’re not alone,” said lead researcher Lindsay Pool, a research assistant professor at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago. Why is wealth loss related to an earlier death? The study cannot answer that question, Pool said. But, she noted, the stress of losing your financial security — especially later in life — could take a toll on physical health. Plus, people who lose their savings may be unable to afford health care or prescriptions. “Many people in this study would have been on Medicare,” Pool said. “But they can still have had a hard time covering out-of-pocket expenses.”

More than one-quarter of study participants lost most of their wealth at some point over the 20-year study. Another 7 percent had no savings or other assets to begin with. “If this has happened to you, you’re not alone,” said lead researcher Lindsay Pool, a research assistant professor at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago. Why is wealth loss related to an earlier death? The study cannot answer that question, Pool said. But, she noted, the stress of losing your financial security — especially later in life — could take a toll on physical health.

In the study, published Tuesday in the journal JAMA, researchers examined how losing financial stability impacts a person’s health over time. Lindsay Pool, a research assistant professor of preventive medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, and her colleagues looked at more than 8,700 people, ages 51-61, who were participating in a national study. The researchers looked at how experiencing a “negative wealth shock”—defined as losing 75% or more of their total asset value, including things like a pension, home or business, over two years—affected a person’s mortality.

A mounting body of evidence suggests a link between financial setbacks and ill health, and there’s growing interest from traditional health-care players in the nonmedical factors, such as economic security, that shape people’s well-being. Researchers have used the Great Recession as a natural experiment to study the effects of losing wealth and found losses associated with depression, anxiety, suicide, higher blood pressure and substance abuse. “What’s interesting is we find that someone’s starting point — whether your net worth is $50,000 or $500,000 or $5 million — it doesn’t seem to matter in terms of health risk. Losing 75 percent or more of that creates that increased risk of mortality,” said Lindsay Pool, a research assistant professor of preventive medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, who led the study.

“Having wealth and losing it suddenly carries almost the same risk for premature mortality as never having wealth,” said lead study author Lindsay Pool, a researcher at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago. Poverty has long been linked to an increased risk of an early death, Pool said by email. Previous research also suggests that a sudden reversal of fortune may contribute to chronic stress, depression, anxiety and high blood pressure, all of which are independently associated with a greater risk of dying young.

An analysis involving more than 8,000 Americans found that those who suffered a “negative wealth shock” — defined as losing at least 75 percent of their wealth in two years — faced a 50 percent increased risk of dying over the next two decades. “That was surprising,” says Lindsay Pool, a research assistant professor of preventive medicine at Northwestern University. “A 50 percent increased risk of mortality over a 20-year period is a lot.” The study is the first to find an association between financial catastrophes and an increased risk of dying in the long term, Pool says.

There is a statewide ban on specific formulas of synthetic marijuana but manufacturers could be slightly changing the formula to sidestep the law and get the products sold, said Melaney Arnold, spokeswoman for the public health department. Those who have been hospitalized obtained the products in convenience stores, from dealers and friends, she said. Consumption of synthetic cannabinoids previously has caused serious health problems such as seizures and kidney failure, but the side effect of severe bleeding is tied to the recent outbreak, said Dr. Patrick Lank, a medical toxicologist who works at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. “Most of what we are seeing is spontaneous bleeding of the gums or nose, in the stool and urine,” he said.

Extremely obese middle-aged men had almost triple the risk of having a heart condition or dying from it, compared with normal-weight men, and extremely obese middle-aged women had more than twice the risk of normal-weight women. “Our data clearly show that obesity is associated with a shorter, sicker life with more cardiovascular disease and more years lived with cardiovascular disease,” said lead study author Dr. Sadiya Khan of the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago.

Where and what psychiatrists end up practicing after their four-year residency ends matters most in addressing the shortage, said Dr. Sidney Weissman, clinical professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine. Many decide it is in their financial interest to go directly into private practice rather than continue collecting a resident stipend for a fifth year as they train in a subspecialty where the need is most dire, such as geriatric or child and adolescent psychiatry, Weissman said. He advocates letting psychiatrists train in a subspecialty in their fourth year of residency to make it more economically viable.

Research suggests that cooking to the point of “charring” is the main issue, said Linda Van Horn, a spokesperson for the American Heart Association who was not involved in the study. The process produces chemicals that are not normally present in the body, explained Van Horn, who is also a professor of preventive medicine at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago. Those chemicals include heterocyclic aromatic amines (HAAs) and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs).