Study Finds How Stress Raises Heart Disease & Stroke Risk

LONDON (Reuters) – People with heightened activity in the Amygdala, the brain linked to stress, may have greater risk of heart disease and stroke. The Lancet medical journal, the researchers said the stress signaled in the Amygdala is also linked to increased bone marrow activity and inflammation in the arteries, leading to heart attack and stroke.

Exploring the link

Plausible biological mechanism could be that the Amygdala triggers the bone marrow to produce extra white blood cells, causing the arteries to develop plaques and become inflamed.

“Our results provide a unique insight into how stress may lead to cardiovascular disease.” – Ahmed Tawakol of Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School led the study. “This raises the possibility that reducing stress could produce benefits that extend beyond an improved sense of psychological well being.”

Smoking, high blood pressure and diabetes are well established risk factors for heart disease. Now evidence has pointed to chronic stress as another possible risk. Studies in animals have previously found a link between stress and higher activity in bone marrow and arteries, but until now scientists were unsure if this was the case in people.

Other research has found the Amygdala is more active in people with post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety and depression. Before this study, none had found the region of the brain that links stress to heart attack and stroke risk.

Scientists gave 293 patients brain and body scans to record their brain, bone marrow and spleen activity and inflammation of their arteries.The patients were then tracked for an average of 3.7 years. In this time 22 patients had cardiovascular events – including heart attack, angina, heart failure, stroke and peripheral arterial disease.

What about those with higher Amygdala activity?

They were found to have subsequent cardiovascular disease, and more likely to develop problems sooner than those with lower activity.

Emily Reeve, a cardiac nurse at the British Heart Foundation charity had this to say. “The link between stress and increased risk of developing heart disease has previously focused on the lifestyle habits…. such as smoking, drinking…and overeating. Exploring the brain’s management of stress… discovering why it increases the risk of heart disease will allow us to develop new ways of managing chronic psychological stress.”

Yours in Health,

Dr. Jack Belitz, DC

PS. It’s great that the Medics are finally getting in step with how bad stress is. The one thing that we have learned is that it’s not the stress that is bad for you but the effects of stress. The very special work that we offer in this office will help your body decrease the effects of the stress in your life.

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