 Did you know that having student loan debt may increase your risk for heart disease? According to a recent study published in the American Journal of Preventative Medicine, which analyzed the association between adults that didn't pay down their student debt, or took on new educational debt between young adulthood and early midlife, had an elevated risk for cardiovascular disease. As if having student debt alone wasn't enough already. Now you get to add a little sprinkle of heart disease into the situation. Lovely. If you've watched any of my other videos, welcome back. And for those of you who are new around here, my name is Michael, aka Dr. Cellini, and I'm a board certified diagnostic and interventional radiologist. And also for those of you who are new around here, I love talking about student debt. It's a passion of mine, really. So on today's video, we are doing just that. We're talking about student debt and how it increases our risk for heart disease. Let's go. Also, before we get into the video, if you want a chance at getting five free stocks, literally just click the link in my description from Weeble. All you need to do is deposit literally one penny and you get five free stocks. It's that simple. Click the link in my description. So as we know, student loan debt has become extremely common for young adults these days. In fact, about 46 million Americans have student debt totaling upwards of $1.75 trillion. That's right, trillion. And among the seemingly never ending rise of education costs and declining state support for higher education and mixed in with the little middle class wage stagnation, student loans have become the highest form of debt for U.S. households just behind mortgages. So this is probably the only time where second place is better than being first. Per the article, the average holder of debt graduates with greater than $30,000 in student loans and it has become increasingly more challenging for people to repay it. Furthermore, there's probably no surprise that the default rate on these loans just continues to creep higher and higher as well. It only makes sense after all. Another interesting stat here is that less than half of borrowers who are currently in their repayment status have paid at least $1 towards their principal within five years of being in repayment. And for those of you that don't know what that means, basically half of the population that has student loans has been paying only the interest and not even touch the principal yet. And by principal, I mean the actual amount you borrowed minus the interest rate. And unlike almost any other debt in America, student loans do not go away with bankruptcy, which means you are literally stuck with it for life, regardless of your financial situation. Say you lose your job? Well, too bad. Still gotta pay those student loans. Better find a way to make those payments. And you've heard me talk about the income driven repayment plans where you pay a portion of your income every single month, which I used to do as well before I refinanced my student loans. But even those people are having difficult time paying their loans back as well. So as we get into this article, it may come at no surprise that carrying student loan debt may increase your levels of stress. It's not shocking here. And per the article, on one hand, longitudinal findings reveal that higher education, especially a four year degree is associated with lower inflammation and better health. Many have thought that secondary education promotes better health because additional years in school bring knowledge, skills, and other resources. It provides you with a prestigious, stable job that you are well compensated for, right? Well, maybe if you don't have student debt. Mounting evidence shows that student debt is a financial stressor. And it takes a toll on mental health and your overall well being. Per the article in Young Adults, student debt is associated with poor psychological functioning, shorter sleep, and lower life satisfaction. Furthermore, student debt has also been shown to be associated with smoking and high blood pressure, both of which result in cardiovascular disease. Some studies even show that there is an association with student debt and poor health, which is most prevalent when students first finish their college education and start having to pay off their loans, which makes sense. You're having to deal with the added stress of finding a job, just finishing higher education. And piled on top of all that, you have to start paying off your loans when you don't have an income yet. You can see how this could be a little bit stressful. And trust me, I've been there. And I guess I still am there, to be honest. Okay, so now let's get into the actual study. I'm going to read off here. So this study looks at the changes in household student loan debt between young adulthood and early midlife and two related outcomes. The first is the 30 year Framingham cardiovascular disease risk scores and CRP assays showing chronic stress and inflammation. And CRP stands for C reactive protein, which is a way we measure inflammation and stress. The second is future risk disease and healthy adults. Now I'm not going to sit here and read off all the materials and methods and go through the statistical analysis that they did to come up with all of these results, but I am going to summarize the article for you because that's the point of this entire video. Researchers included data from 20,745 participants from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. Participants were first followed from the grades seven through 12, and then again between the ages of 22 and 44. And then biological measures were performed for cardiovascular health and C reactive protein levels on certain participants. The results of the study demonstrated that those who consistently had debt or took on debt had higher cardiovascular risk scores than those who have never been in debt or had paid off their debt. Also, the study showed clinically significant C reactive protein levels in those who took on debt or were consistently in debt between young adulthood and early midlife. Of note, ethnicity and race had no impact on outcomes. Now there were some limitations of this study, which I'll get into right now. There were three of them. So for one, the student debt was measured at the household level, which could conflate an individual's debt with their family's debt. So stay for instance, I was in a household and I had debt, but also my two brothers that live with me and my mom also had debt. The debt would be artificially elevated in my household versus it just being me there. The second limitation of this study was that CRP and cardiovascular disease was measured at a single point in time, which cannot really identify the changing factors associated with cardiovascular health over time. And lastly, participants conceding to the at-home medical exams and blood tests to get the cardiovascular measures and CRP assays were not chosen at random and therefore, selection bias could have been a concern. Overall though, in conclusion, this study suggests that student debt negates the health benefits of college completion and socioeconomic advantage of a four-year credential. This study joins a growing body of research demonstrating student debt to be a financial stressor affecting population health. Furthermore, student debt may have other long-term health consequences that we have yet to figure out. So what do I think about all of this? You know, I probably have some strong feelings because I always have strong feelings about student debt. Well, I think it's obviously no secret that America has a student debt crisis. And I think now we are just starting to understand that the student debt may impact Americans in ways we weren't prepared for. I was actually just having this conversation with my friends at my other friends, birthday barbecue this weekend. Shout out, Sandy. A lot of my friends there had kids in the two to three year old range and we were talking about what's going to happen 15, 16 years from now when it's time for their kids to finish high school and potentially go to college. Will college still be relevant at that time? Is it even going to be worth it? Is tuition going to be like $100,000 per year by then? And now when you read articles like this, it makes you think twice about the future of our education. And is it worth to pay all this money and add so much stress to our lives just to get educated? Like what else are we going to discover in the coming years? Is being indebted financially to the government and sacrificing your own health worth a degree? It really makes you think. And one thing we haven't really touched on yet is how this all leads to increased cardiovascular risk besides the stress and inflammation. Well, think about it. What's the first thing to go when you're stressed out and strapped for cash? Your diet. When you're strapped for cash, you're not going to be stopping by Whole Foods every day and buying expensive healthy meals. You're going to be going for the cheap carb-heavy option like McDonald's. Get yourself a little dollar, quarter pounder, or Big Mac, whatever it is. I haven't eaten at McDonald's in like 15 years. And you don't do this because you want to. It's not like you don't want to go to Whole Foods and you want to go to McDonald's. Well, maybe you do. But for the purpose of this argument, you don't want to go to McDonald's, but you're kind of forced to because it's the cheaper option and it's the less stressful option for you. And it's pretty much the only thing you can afford in that time. And also that $150 a month gym you are a member of, you're probably not going to go to that either because that gets slashed too and you can't afford these things. So this is why your diet kind of goes out the window and you start this downward spiral effect and you start developing increased risk for cardiovascular disease. And then what do you do when you're stressed out? You maybe take up smoking or you start smoking even more, which increases your cardiovascular risk. And I hope you're now seeing how much just this little financial stress has such an impact on your life and ultimately your health. Also, who do you think is impacted the most by this student debt crisis? Well, the study shows that people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds are disproportionately affected by the negative health consequences of having student debt. And I came across an interesting quote while doing research for this article. I'll pop up on the screen right here. These findings provide a benchmark for widening health inequalities among a cohort bearing more student debt than any other in US history. The study points out in this conclusion, as student debt accumulates within cohort disparities in cardiovascular disease and related morbidities may undermine the health benefits of post-secondary education. Said another way, the health ramifications associated with growing debt burden associated with higher education may outweigh the benefits of continuing education for low income populations. It may be more significant. The low income population is more unlikely to be able to repay their debt, which would make them be consistently in debt and more likely to take on more debt. And it's crazy here. Once you kind of get into the details of student debt, how much it impacts everybody, you think it's just associated with the financial burden of being in debt. But there are so many other factors that go along with it. And the goal of this whole video is to kind of highlight some of those. But what about the Biden administration and the debt forgiveness that they keep talking about? I'm prepared to write off the $10,000 debt. For one, I thought about doing a whole video on this topic, but there's not enough data out for me to really go and do a deep dive like I want to. And allegedly, I keep hearing that there's rumors of it coming down the pipe. But who knows? Allegedly, they've been talking about this student loan forgiveness, but it has many contingencies. Some rumors say that not everybody will get their student loans forgiven. And it may be related to your current income level. So the high income earners will not be invited to have their student loans forgiven. And they might not even forgive a student loan amount over $10,000. I think they said for certain that they would not forgive anything over $50,000, which means it'll probably be like less than half of that. So I'm guessing around like $10,000 if it even happens. Because as of now, it's a very long way away. So I wouldn't hold your breath and I wouldn't count on that student loan forgiveness, especially since nowadays $10,000 doesn't even cover like what a semester in med school. So it's not gonna really do much for your student loan debt, but every little bit helps, right? So I think we pretty much touched on everything about this article and student debt and the impact of student debt on your health. Hopefully you all enjoyed this. Hopefully you all learned something. Let me know in the comments what you think about this article. As always, I will link it in the description box below. Make sure you gently press on that subscribe button, follow me on Instagram and TikTok if you don't already. And as always, I'll see you all on the next video. Bye.