Quotes by Dr. Nicholas Christakis

“We showed that you can die of a broken heart not just when your partner dies, but also when your partner falls ill.”

“People are interconnected and their health is too. We pay a lot of attention to other risk factors for ill health: tobacco exposure, poverty. Heres another risk factor: having an ill partner.”

“On the one hand, its common sense its hard to see someone you love get sick or die. People are interconnected and their health is, too.”

“Its very hard to see someone you love who is sick; it is hard to care for them, and it is hard on your health. People are interconnected, and their health is, too.”

“What it shows is that people are interconnected, and their health is interconnected, and seeing a person you love suffer, seeing them ill, harms you.”

“When a spouse is hospitalized, the partners risk of death increases significantly and remains elevated for up to two years.”

“When a spouse is hospitalized, the partners risk of death increases significantly and remains elevated for up to two years. Stress and lack of social support may also adversely affect immunologic measures, so spousal hospitalization may have physiological effects on partners.”

“The timing of such interventions might be matched to the riskiest times for caregivers, for example, just after the hospitalization of the spouse.”

“A spouse with cancer is generally not as burdensome for a partner as more disabling conditions such as dementia, where you combine both the stress of caring for the spouse and waning social support from your partner.”