TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Study finds link between stress and heart disease
After a long history of research, scientists have finally discovered how stress can influence heart health.
Change Size
According to a study published in The Lancet journal, the region of the brain linked with fear and stress called amygdala is able to foretell your risk for heart disease and stroke. (Shutterstock/-)
After a long history of research, scientists have finally discovered how stress can influence heart health.
According to a study published in The Lancet journal, the region of the brain linked with fear and stress called amygdala is able to foretell your risk for heart disease and stroke. "The study showed, for the first time in animal models or humans, the part of the brain -- the amygdala -- that links to the risk of subsequent cardiovascular disease," said the Massachusetts General Hospital's cardiac PET/CT program co-director Dr. Ahmed Tawakol.
"The amygdala is a critical component of the brain's stress network and becomes metabolically active during times of stress," Tawakol added. In his opinion, the study could supply a new understanding on how to mitigate stress–related cardiovascular diseases.
(Read also: Underweight people at elevated risk of heart diseases: Study)
As stated by World Health Organization (WTO), the leading cause of death among men and women across the world is cardiovascular disease— a disease class that involves the heart or blood vessels.
The new study got 293 adults to undergo PET and CT scans at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston between 2005 and 2008. The scans recorded brain activity, bone marrow activity, spleen activity, as well as inflammation in the heart arteries. Studies on animals have revealed that stress can result in more cell-activity in bone marrow and the spleen.
Subsequently, researchers monitored the health of each patient for two to five years, during which 22 of the patients had undergone either a stroke or heart attack. Examining the scans and heart condition of each patient helped the researchers detect that increased activity in the amygdala could be associated with a higher risk of a cardiovascular event.
(Read also: Struggling with stress? Consider exercising, study says)
"We were surprised at how robustly amygdala activity predicted hard cardiovascular events, along with providing information on the timing of those events," Tawakol said.
The research unveils a complex chain of events that might elucidate the stress and heart risk link. That is, stress may activate the amygdala, leading to extra immune cell production by the bone marrow, which consequently may impact the arteries, resulting in inflammation that could lead to a cardiovascular disease event, such as a heart attack or stroke.
Nonetheless, Tawakol conveyed that the links drawn in this study did not prove causation and suggested that more research be carried out by performing the same study on a larger set of patients. (nik/kes)
