Re: Can you die from 1) laughter and 2) fright?

Dear Mikael,

Thank you for your interesting question. 

It seems that someone can indeed die following fright. However, it is 
difficult to know about the extent of predisposition to cardiac problems 
in victims. In a study made during the Gulf war, it was observed that more 
cases of myocardial infarction and sudden death occurred in the civilian 
population, compared with control periods. This may be caused by the fear 
of missile attack during the war, particularly in the first period of the 
war. Also, in some kinds of practices like voodoo, sudden death may be 
attributed to fright. There is also the so-called « psychogenic death » in 
which an individual finds himself in a desesperate situation (ex. 
imprisonment during war time) and dies after a short time. However, in 
these cases, the individual shows no signs of fright and the death is not 
sudden but takes place a few days after the negative event onset. 

Finally, I found no information about the possibility of death from 
laughter but I think that this is unlikely to happen to people without a 
previous pathological state. 

Eric

References :

Meisel S.R. et al. 
Effect of Iraqi missile war on incidence of acute myocardial infarction 
and sudden death in Israeli civilians.
Lancet 1991 Sep 14;338(8768):660-1

Golden, Kenneth M. 
Voodoo in Africa and the United States
American Journal of Psychiatry. Vol 134(12), Dec 1977, 1425-1427.

Goodfriend M. & Wolpert E.A. 
Death from fright: report of a case and literature review.
Psychosomatic Medicine 1976 Sep-Oct;38(5):348-56

Stumpfe, K.-D. The dynamics of psychogenic death.
Dynamische Psychiatrie. Vol 8(2), 1975, 100-105.