ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The intensity of a good football game, when can it be too much?</s>DR. ARSHED QUYYUMI, CARDIOLOGIST, EMORY UNIV: Not just physical stress, but emotional stress can lead to cardiovascular disease.</s>COHEN: Emotional stress from disasters like earthquakes or floods can trigger heart attacks, even death. But the Super Bowl? Los Angeles researchers studied football fans there in the 1980s. They found a Super Bowl loss by the L.A. Rams was associated with more cardiac deaths than the win by the L.A. Raiders four years later, and the difference was more dramatic among women than men. They also found intensity of the game mattered. The Rams' 1980 loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers was a nail-biter. Super Bowl party rituals like overeating, drinking and smoking may be part of the problem.</s>QUYYUMI: All of these things lead to disturbances in your blood pressure, heart rate and how the blood vessels are working.</s>COHEN: There's no one size fits all for prevention, but Quyyumi has some advice with people with heart disease.</s>QUYYUMI: Pay particular attention to not getting carried away.</s>COHEN: This precaution applies to all smokers and anyone with high cholesterol, high blood pressure or diabetes. Elizabeth Cohen, CNN.
Super Bowl Stress Can Kill You