Stress increases risk of heart disease in people under 50

The report that has been published in BMJ and quoted in a report in The New York Times evaluated Swedish data on 136,637 people.

Stress is known to wreck havoc to one’s health. A new study has deduced that stress also increases the risk of heart disease particularly in younger people. The report that has been published in BMJ and quoted in a report in The New York Times evaluated Swedish data on 136,637 people. They had been diagnosed with stress-related disorders, including acute stress reaction, post-traumatic stress disorder and others.

They were compared with 171,314 unaffected siblings, and also with 1,366,370 people in the general population, who have not been diagnosed with a stress disorder diagnosis. The researchers tracked their health for up to 27 years. It was deduced that a person who suffers from stress disorder was 29 per cent more likely to suffer from cardiovascular disease than a sibling without a stress disorder. The person is 37 per cent more susceptible to suffer than those in the general population. In the first year after the diagnosis, the risk was even higher, with 64 per cent higher than a sibling, and 71 per cent higher than the general population.

The result was concluded after making controlling physical and mental health history, sex, age, income and other factors.

The link between stress and cardiovascular disease are particularly strong for people under 50.

“Our study included only people with a diagnosed stress disorder,” Huan Song, the lead author and a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Iceland said. “But people with depression and anxiety are also at higher risk for cardiovascular disease. In fact, anyone with stress is at higher risk, but here we focused on people with acute stresses and severe psychiatric reactions to them.”

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