|
HowToPreventHeartDisease.com |
||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
 |
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Stress And Anxiety Can Lead To Cardiovascular Disease! In general, stress can be anything that poses a challenge or a threat to one’s well-being. Certain type of stress can be a good one as it helps people meet challenge. For example, people can perform well in their work, examination, or even game is often driven by stress. On the other hand, dealing with a serious illness or caring for someone can cause a great deal of stress to a person. In other words, stress could be bad as it could make one feels frustrated, angry, nervous, or anxious. People will react to stress by a physical, mental or emotional adjustment or response. Different people would have different tolerance on stress. Beyond certain point, either good or bad stress would begin to cause major damage to one’s health, mood, productivity, relationship and quality of life. Stress and anxiety are key factors that could contribute to cardiovascular disease! The statement was announced during the 57th annual conference of the American College of Cardiology held on March 30, 2008. Researchers from the Lown Cardiovascular Research Foundation of Massachusetts found that people who had their stress levels reduced and kept under control would face a 60-percent lower chance of suffering heart attack or stroke than those constant worriers. The study, which spanned over a period of 3 to 4 years, involved 516 patients with heart disease. Examination on these patients showed that 44 of them suffered non-fatal heart attack while 19 died. Comparing to other factors, such as age, marital status, blood pressure and smoking, that would cause heart disease, the link between anxiety and number of fatal and non-fatal heart attack suffered by patients under observation has remained unchanged.
The study confirmed that psychological stress, either depression or anxiety, has been linked to the progression of atherosclerosis (the hardening of arteries), development of atherothrombosis (blood accumulation leading to clotting), and increased risk of arrhythmias (irregular heartbeat). The patients in the study were divided into 3 groups according to their level of anxiety, namely high, intermediate and low. These patients had heart disease including arrhythmia, atherosclerosis and atherothrombosis. Questionnaires were given to patients to find out about their feelings and moods, sleep patterns, irregularity in bowel or stomach functions and other stress markers. Besides anxiety, the questionnaires also measured depression, hostility and physical complaints. Based on the results, the researchers concluded that constant stress and anxiety could even affect the rhythm of the heartbeat, raising the risk of heart disease. The researchers of the study actually followed a report, published in 2007 by the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, that reported that people with heart disease living in permanent anxiety have a 2 times riskier of getting a heart attack or to die compared to those who live otherwise. In a separate study, researchers from Central University of Venezuela in Caracas showed that patients might be especially vulnerable if they have a history of heart attack, family history of sudden death or coronary disease, and cardiovascular risk factors such as diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, obesity, sedentary lifestyle or smoking. They also pointed out that certain event like anniversary of the death of a family member can frequently lead to heart problems with fatal outcomes, particularly among men. Based on the findings, cardiologists were urged to pay attention to their patients not only to their cardiovascular disease but also to their psychological problems.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
 |
|||||||||||||||||||||||
Copyright
2007-2012 © HowToPreventHeartDisease.com . All Rights Reserved.d....... |
||||||||||||||||||||||||
