"We've done years of work in showing that excess alarm or stress chemicals can literally burst heart muscle fibers. When that happens it happens very quickly, within five minutes. It creates many short circuits, and that causes crazy heart rhythms. The heart beats like a bag of worms instead of a pump. And when that happens, we can't live." Eliot, 64, suffered a heart attack at age 44. He attributes some of the cause to stress. For years he was a "hot reactor". On the exterior, he was cool, calm and collected, but on the interior, stress was killing him. He's now doing very well. The main predictors of destructive levels of stress are the FUD factors - fear, uncertainty and doubt - together with perceived lack of control, he says.