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Doctors See Stress from 'Harry,' Oprah
A doctor tells the New England Journal of Medicine that reading "Harry Potter" can cause stress in kids, while another study links stress to Oprah.
Originally posted Thursday October 30, 2003 02:43 PM EST
Stressed out lately? Maybe you've been reading too much "Harry Potter." Or watching too much Oprah.
Those are the bizarre new findings from a pair of medical experts. A doctor at the George Washington University Medical Center Washington has warned that he has seen three children complain of headaches caused by the physical stress of relentlessly plowing through the epic, 870-page "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," reports Reuters, which dubs the syndrome cited by Dr. Howard Bennett "Hogwarts headaches."
The good doctor made his findings evident in a letter to this week's New England Journal of Medicine, in which he told of three children, ages 8 to 10, who had experienced a dull headache for two or three days after many hours of reading.
After ruling out other potential causes, Bennett told his patients to give their eyes a rest. But the spell cast by J.K. Rowling's book apparently was too strong.
"The obvious cure for this malady -- that is, taking a break from reading -- was rejected by two of the patients," Bennett said, adding that the children took acetaminophen instead.
In each case, said the doc, the headache went away only after the patient reached the final page.
Meanwhile, in similar news, the New York Post reports that behaviorist Hale Dwoskin has discovered after commissioning a study on stress in the U.S. that there is a surprising link between anxiety levels and watching "The Oprah Winfrey Show."
"Either watching Oprah leads to anxiety, or severely stressed Americans are drawn to Oprah," says Dwoskin, whose finding reveals that 5 percent of the nation's adults, or 9 million Americans, say they are so stressed out they can't cope -- and 4.5 million of those people are Oprah fans.
Sounds like a good topic for one of her programs.
Those are the bizarre new findings from a pair of medical experts. A doctor at the George Washington University Medical Center Washington has warned that he has seen three children complain of headaches caused by the physical stress of relentlessly plowing through the epic, 870-page "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," reports Reuters, which dubs the syndrome cited by Dr. Howard Bennett "Hogwarts headaches."
The good doctor made his findings evident in a letter to this week's New England Journal of Medicine, in which he told of three children, ages 8 to 10, who had experienced a dull headache for two or three days after many hours of reading.
After ruling out other potential causes, Bennett told his patients to give their eyes a rest. But the spell cast by J.K. Rowling's book apparently was too strong.
"The obvious cure for this malady -- that is, taking a break from reading -- was rejected by two of the patients," Bennett said, adding that the children took acetaminophen instead.
In each case, said the doc, the headache went away only after the patient reached the final page.
Meanwhile, in similar news, the New York Post reports that behaviorist Hale Dwoskin has discovered after commissioning a study on stress in the U.S. that there is a surprising link between anxiety levels and watching "The Oprah Winfrey Show."
"Either watching Oprah leads to anxiety, or severely stressed Americans are drawn to Oprah," says Dwoskin, whose finding reveals that 5 percent of the nation's adults, or 9 million Americans, say they are so stressed out they can't cope -- and 4.5 million of those people are Oprah fans.
Sounds like a good topic for one of her programs.
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