Financial Stress & Your Health

In recent years, it has become increasingly clear that one's financial well-being and physical well-being are intimately linked. Financial difficulties can increase your stress level, decrease your access to services, and change your lifestyle in ways that make you and your family more likely to get sick. This is why it is so important for you to address your financial problems.

       For a variety of reasons, the amount of money your household earns correlates with actual physical changes in your body. Those with lower incomes show higher levels of certain biochemical markers of disease, including:

       Higher average blood sugar levels and risk for diabetes

    Higher blood pressure and cholesterol, which both increase the risk of heart attack and stroke.

    Higher levels of C-reactive protein, a marker of chronic inflammation related to heart disease and some cancers.

        A family’s financial struggles also can have a great and lasting effect on children.

    Children of families with lower incomes are, on average, less healthy than their wealthier peers. They have a greater onset of new medical conditions and get sicker from chronic conditions, such as asthma, diabetes, and epilepsy. These differences become more pronounced as the children get older.

     Low income children miss more days of school due to illness and have more hospital visits compared to higher income peers. 

     Newborns in lower income families have lower birth weights than those of higher incomes.

       Chronic stress, which can be caused by financial difficulties, is also associated with various illnesses and disease states:

       Greater susceptibility to infections, including the common cold

       Decreased wound healing

       Reactivation of latent viruses such as Herpes

       Decreased immune response to diseases, including cancer and HIV

       Cardiovascular disease

Improving your health can begin with improving your finances

Tom Albert,
Aug 1, 2011, 6:46 AM
Tom Albert,
Aug 1, 2011, 6:38 AM