One, published in the British Medical Journal for 1860, concerned a housemaid who was caught red-handed while filching food from a larder, and dropped dead on the spot. Doctors at the time were unable to discover why she had died, although it is likely that one cause would have been a sudden rush of adrenalin - the same rush that we experience in any situation of stress.
A less direct way to die from embarrassment is to fail to report an embarrassing medical condition until it's too late. A survey by BUPA found that embarrassment about bowel cancer could be costing thousands of lives a year. Another, published by Johns Hopkins University, found many young people in the US are dying prematurely of AIDS for a similar reason.
However, after watching the final of Celebrity Big Brother last night, i've come to the conclusion it's impossible to die of embarrassment. Because when a 53 year old drunken lush with serious delusions of grandeur and deep mental health issues wins for nothing more than revealing her breasts during a mental breakdown ........ well, if that didn't kill her, nothing will.
