Anxiety Predicts Heart Disease - studies

[Guest guest]

THis is one reason i like to see us all take the needed LIFESTYLE changes with

banding seriously. One of the needed changes is to learn to control and deal

with stress much better.

There will always be stress in this world - but how we choose to deal with it is

always up to us.

Stress releases a lot of hormones that adversely affect the band, as well as all

organs. Many of us have experienced the band seeming to " tighten " at times of

extra stress - even thought the fluid in it is not changing, of course. The

stress hormones have affected the tissues around the band and it SEEMS tighter,

and people get into trouble much more easily.

Learning good stress-control techniques is not only good for band reasons, it's

good for the whole body -

Things like Guided Imagery (which has been a major part of my own ongoing weight

maintenance), therapy to understand the issues we ALL have (That led us to badly

overeat among other things) , additional exercise, learning relaxation

techniques (and practicing them) are among the things that help.

Sandy

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Anxiety Predicts Heart Disease Years Later

Nainggolan

June 21, 2010 (Tilburg, the Netherlands and Stockholm, Sweden) - Two new studies

firmly establish anxiety as an independent predictor for subsequent coronary

heart disease years down the line [1,2]. Doctors, who often neglect to ask

patients about their feelings, should pay heed to these findings, say the

researchers.

Dr Annelieke M Roest (Tilburg University, the Netherlands) and colleagues

performed the first-ever meta-analysis on the association of anxiety with the

incidence of CHD in initially healthy people, using data from the US, Europe,

and Asia. Even after multivariate adjustment, anxious people had around a 25%

greater risk of CHD and an almost 50% higher risk of cardiac death over a mean

follow-up period of 11.2 years.

In the second study, almost 50 000 Swedish men who were medically examined for

military service and followed for an average of 37 years were assessed by Dr

Imre Janszky (Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden) and coworkers. Depression

was not a predictor for subsequent coronary disease, but those with anxiety

disorders--as diagnosed by a psychiatrist--were twice as likely to suffer CHD or

acute MI, even after adjustment for baseline confounders.

The new papers appear in the June 29, 2010 issue of the Journal of the American

College of Cardiology, as does an accompanying editorial [3] by psychiatrist Dr

E Dimsdale (University of California, San Diego).

qAnxiety symptoms can be such a strong beacon, lighting the way to future

coronary disease decades in advance.

Dimsdale says it is " odd that anxiety symptoms can be such a strong beacon,

lighting the way to future coronary disease decades in advance. " Cardiologists,

he says " are certainly cognizant of anxiety's effects " on transient physiology,

such as blood pressure, palpitations, and angina, but this new research suggests

that asking about previous early-life anxiety might be relevant in clinical

assessment for the diagnosis and prevention of cardiovascular disease.

And although trials are needed to see whether therapies aimed at alleviating

anxiety would reduce cardiovascular risk, " until proven otherwise, the wise

clinician might 'assume' that treatment of anxiety disorders might have benefits

beyond immediate symptomatic and functional improvement, " he observes.

Clinicians Should Be Aware of the Risk of Anxiety

In their meta-analysis, Roest and colleagues combined data from 20 studies,

including approximately 250 000 initially healthy individuals from the US,

Norway, the Netherlands, Sweden, Japan, and the UK. The studies were all

prospective in nature and had to have included at baseline at least one

self-report or interview-based assessment of anxiety symptoms or anxiety

disorder. End points had to include cardiac mortality or MI.

Adjustment for confounding factors was performed in 18 of the 20 studies; the

researchers found that anxious people were at higher risk of CHD (hazard ratio

1.26; p<0.0001) and cardiac death (HR 1.48; p=0.003), with a nonsignificant

trend for an association between anxiety and nonfatal MI (HR 1.43; p=0.180).

" Our most important finding was that anxiety was associated with the development

of incident CHD in initially healthy persons, " Roest told heartwire .

" Clinicians should be aware of this; if they have anxious patients, they might

be at risk to develop heart disease, and this was in initially healthy patients.

But you also see this risk in patients who already have heart disease; there is

a relationship with the progression of heart disease, " she noted.

Anxiety, But Not Depression, Associated With CHD Risk

In the Swedish conscript study, depression and anxiety were diagnosed by

psychiatrists during the medical exam of males aged 18 to 20 in 1969 and 1970.

Data on well-established CHD risk factors and potential confounders were also

collected. Participants were followed for CHD and AMI for 37 years.

Multivariate-adjusted hazard ratios for depression were 1.04 for CHD and 1.03

for AMI. For anxiety, these were 2.17 and 2.51, respectively.

" We uniquely investigated the long-term relationship between depression and

anxiety, diagnosed by experts in men aged 18 to 20 years, and the subsequent

long-term CHD outcome in a large sample of men. Anxiety . . . independently

predicted CHD events. In contrast, we found no support for such an effect

concerning early-onset depression in men, " say Janszky et al.

They suggest that one of the reasons why many previous studies have found a link

between depression and CHD could be because these often employed self-reporting

of such symptoms.

" Anxiety and depression are independent psychopathological conditions, although

they share common symptoms and are very often comorbid. " Participants in prior

studies may have been unable to distinguish one from the other, they propose.

Roest told heartwire it is important that studies look at the interaction of

anxiety and depression, " because there is such a large overlap between them. "

Anxiety Disorders as Prevalent as Hypertension

In his editorial, Dimsdale says that new risk factors for CHD need to be

" carefully scrutinized for clinical utility. " Anxiety disorders, he notes, " are

as prevalent as hypertension " and are a major affliction of the young, with a

lifetime prevalence of around 28%. Their impact on global functioning is roughly

akin to that of lower back pain or leg ulcers. And when anxiety coexists with

depression, the corresponding impact on quality of life " is even worse, " he

observes.

But physicians, he notes, " are frequently timid about assessing emotional

symptoms. It is odd that we thread catheters, ablate lesions, and give rectal

exams but are uncomfortable asking patients about their lives. "

Roest agrees, telling heartwire , " There hasn't been a lot of research on

anxiety; most has focused on depression, and what we know from depression is

that it's very difficult for physicians to recognize it. "

But Dimsdale says " assessment tools like the PRIME-MD [4] are readily available,

with easy-to-ask questions, " opening the door for discussion. These new findings

suggest that including information about anxiety disorders in clinical

assessments " might be relevant for the diagnosis (and prevention) of CHD, " he

concludes.