Mental health essential for healthy heart
October 21, 2005
Does how you feel make you more likely to have a heart attack? Doctors and scientists believe it does.
Recent studies show that good mental health is essential for a healthy heart.
The relationship between depression and heart disease, for example, has been
studied for years.
The results are striking. If you are depressed, you are twice as likely to have
a heart attack.
If you have already suffered a heart attack, being depressed may even quintuple
your risk of having
a second hard attack. You will also be less likely to recover as quickly or
completely from a heart attack if you are depressed.
But being depressed is far from being the only risk factor for your heart.
Patients who scored high on tests that measure stress and hostility were also at
increased risk for heart attacks.
In one study, those who scored highest for anxiety were up to four times as
likely to suffer from serious cardiac illness.
Nor does it matter if you are young or old, male or female.
Being depressed, anxious, stressed out, or even hostile is going to have a
serious impact on your heart.
Researchers are thus beginning to label people who worry a great deal, are
irritable and lack self-assurance as “Type D” personalities, since they not
only have a poorer quality of life but also suffer more from higher rates of
heart disease and stroke.
A recent study published by the medical journal The Lancet looked at more than
11,000 victims of heart attacks from 52 different countries. The study found
that these victims, in the years before their heart attack, had felt a great
deal of stress-far more stress, in fact, than 13,000 healthy people who didn’t
experience heart trouble
Nor does it matter what the source of stress is. Whether it is depression, work, family trouble, or increased hostility, stress is dangerous — if not deadly — for your heart. Other studies even note that victims of child abuse or domestic violence — or even being related to family members who abuse drugs or alcohol — are at greater risk for heart disease.
Because of this emerging and powerful association between the emotions and heart health, the multidisciplinary team at New Milford Hospital’s Cardiovascular Disease Prevention Program is careful to assess stress, depression and other emotional factors, and incorporate this information into a treatment plan to reduce risk factors for heart disease in our patients.
Source: Greater New Milford Spectrum, 21/10/2005