Death by blogging?

According to an article in The New York Times this weekend, the symptoms of a new illness include weight gain or loss, sleep disorders, exhaustion and more.

No, it’s not some exotic new flu, and you can’t read about it in any of the prestigious medical journals… yet. But following the heart attack death of technology blogger Russell Shaw two weeks ago, the Times is questioning how blogging impacts our health.

The article isn’t talking about recreational bloggers who post a few times a week when the mood strikes. Rather, the focus is on professional bloggers, many of whom post round-the-clock in order to feed our apparently bottomless digital appetite for news, comment and other fodder. According to the article, this leads to“vicious 24-hour competition" that takes a major toll on the blogger’s well-being. One blogger quoted in the story says that in order to meet the pressures, he sleeps five hours a night and doesn’t have time to eat proper meals, instead subsisting on protein supplements stirred into his coffee.

Over on dietblog, however, they’ve got the flip slide, with a post on the top 5 reasons blogging can help you lose weight (and no, that coffee-protein powder mix isn’t one of them).

So what do you think: Is blogging good for you or not? And if you have a blog, share it with us! Email us here.