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The latest issue of the medical journal Clinical Cardiology includes study results that may cause diehard Steelers' and Packers' fans to worry. According to the L.A.-based research team, in hometown locales where fans witness the loss of their team, there is an identifiable bump in cardiac-related death rates.
Of course, being in L.A., the researchers had to go back pretty far just to find a hometown team effect to study. (Los Angeles, with a metropolitan area population of more than 13 million people, has not had a pro football team since 1994.) So the researchers settled on the 1980 Super Bowl game where the Steelers beat the L.A. Rams, and the 1984 Super Bowl when the L.A. Raiders beat the Redskins. They found that the 1980 loss by the Rams was linked to a 15 percent rise in all circulatory deaths among men living in the Los Angeles area. Among women, the hike was 27 percent. (Who says we're not football fans?!) By contract, the 1984 win by the Raiders was linked to a drop in cardiac-related death rates, in L.A. that is.
The bottom line: chill out. Sure, it's fun to root for your favorite team (or root against a hated one) but it is only a game. Take some deep eaths, walk around the block, don't let it get to you when that clown who makes $20 million a year drops that pass your grandmother could have caught. Remember, you want to be around to go through this agony all over again next year.
And just imagine the day when the Super Bowl could be a matchup between the Ravens and the Redskins. Pass the valium, please.
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