Reality star Kim Kardashian says she was diagnosed with a brain aneurysm
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US reality TV personality Kim Kardashian during a photo call for the premiere of her TV series All’s Fair In Paris on Oct 21.
PHOTO: AFP
Alexandra E. Petri and Dani Blum
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Kim Kardashian, the American reality television star and entrepreneur, said she has been diagnosed with a brain aneurysm.
The 45-year-old disclosed the diagnosis during a teaser for the seventh season of her reality show The Kardashians (2022 to present), which premiered on Disney+ on Oct 23.
“There’s, like, a little aneurysm,” she can be heard saying in the clip, which appears in a preview of the season at the beginning of its first episode.
Kardashian’s sister Kourtney Kardashian Barker appears to respond to the news, saying: “Whoa.”
Kim Kardashian, who has four children aged six to 12 with her American rapper ex-husband Kanye West, can be heard suggesting the aneurysm stems from stress. Footage in the teaser also appears to show her undergoing a brain scan.
Brain aneurysms are relatively common. About one in every 50 people has an unruptured brain aneurysm. Many people who have them are not aware of them because unruptured aneurysms typically do not cause symptoms.
It was not clear whether Kardashian was experiencing symptoms.
In rare instances, if the aneurysm grows to a large size, unruptured aneurysms can cause intense headaches, weakness, speech difficulties or problems with balance, among other symptoms.
If an aneurysm does rupture, it can lead to a sudden, severe headache – one patients often characterise as the worst of their lives – as well as nausea, double vision, confusion, loss of consciousness or seizures. Aneurysms that burst are extremely dangerous and can lead to strokes, brain damage or even death.
Aneurysms are bulging areas that form on blood vessels in the brain, similar to “a weak spot on a tyre”, said Dr Shazam Hussain, director of the Cerebrovascular Center at the Cleveland Clinic.
But in many cases, unruptured aneurysms can just be monitored. “Not everyone who has a brain aneurysm needs treatment,” said Dr Aditya Pandey, chair of the Department of Neurosurgery at University of Michigan Health.
He considers the location of the aneurysm, the size – the larger it is, the greater the chance it will bleed – the shape and someone’s family history before determining if a patient needs treatment. He also weighs factors that make the aneurysm more likely to expand and bleed, such as smoking and uncontrolled high blood pressure.
Doctors can successfully treat aneurysms through surgery.
Dr Hussain said: “They’re not always scary. A lot of them can just be watched, and in the times we do need to treat them, there are so many good, good ways.”
Kardashian seems to suggest in the clip that stress could have led to her aneurysm.
“We don’t have anything that would suggest there’s a direct link with just stress and aneurysms,” Dr Hussain said. While prolonged stress can lead to high blood pressure, which raises the risk of aneurysms, “we don’t really connect those two, in general”, he added.
The factors that do raise the risk of developing an aneurysm include uncontrolled high blood pressure, smoking and family history.
Kardashian has previously promoted full-body MRI scans, despite doctors warning that these scans may not be useful for every patient. NYTIMES
