Death by Blogging?

Can the stress of blogging cause a heart attack? The New York Times comments on the topic:

"Two weeks ago in North Lauderdale, Fla., funeral services were held for Russell Shaw, a prolific blogger on technology subjects who died at 60 of a heart attack. In December, another tech blogger, Marc Orchant, died at 50 of a massive coronary. A third, Om Malik, 41, survived a heart attack in December.

Other bloggers complain of weight loss or gain, sleep disorders, exhaustion and other maladies born of the nonstop strain of producing for a news and information cycle that is as always-on as the Internet."


Barely Political Gets Blogging Wrong…Barely. GigaOM.

Sedentary lifestyle, fast food and stressful job are not a good combination.

Om Malik's reply to the NYTimes article was "Relax, Chill and maybe Blog."

Good advice. Follow it closely.

2008 Update

Om Malik is doing well: "Making such drastic changes wasn’t easy, but they offered me the best chance of staying alive — and 50 pounds and 12 months later, have clearly worked."

References:
In Web World of 24/7 Stress, Writers Blog Till They Drop. NYT.
Bloggers and Heart Attacks
Popular tech blogger Mark Orchant died of heart attack at 50
AltaVista Founder Dies of a Heart Attack at 42
Another blogger quits due to "blog fatigue"
What I Learned This Year. Om Malik, 12/2008.
Image is licensed under Creative Commons.
Troubleshooting RSS addiction: a blogger finds freedom in a world without feeds. Download Squad, 04/2008.

Related:
Video: Scobleizer talks with Om Malik about stress and changes he's made to his life. Kyte.tv.

Updated: 12/27/2008