MONDAY, June 21, 2010 (Health.com) — Men diagnosed with anxiety in their late teens or early 20s are more than twice as likely to have heart disease or a heart attack later in life than their more laid-back peers, according to a new Swedish study.
As many as 28% of people are diagnosed with anxiety at some point in their lives, according to an editorial accompanying the study in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
Anxiety is more than feeling stressed out. People with anxiety disorders feel excessive or irrational worry and can have anxiety-related physical symptoms, such as fatigue, headaches, trembling, sweating, panic, and nausea.
Experts have a number of hypotheses as to why anxiety and heart disease may be linked, though the new research can’t confirm that anxiety—not some other factor—is the cause of heart disease and heart attacks in the study.
“Anxiety increases adrenaline; stress and anxiety trigger an adverse response,” says Tracy Stevens, MD, a spokesperson for the American Heart Association and a cardiologist with Saint Luke’s Mid America Heart Institute, in Kansas City, Miss. This stress could affect the fatty plaque lining coronary arteries; if the plaque ruptures, it can lead to clots and heart attacks.
However, that’s just a theory at the moment, says Dr. Stevens, who was not involved in the research. Although it’s known that anxiety can affect blood pressure and heart disease-related chest pain in the short term, the long-term effects are unknown.
Next page: Can anti-anxiety drugs protect your heart?
