New Findings Show Anxiety in Men Can Lead to Heart Disease Risk Factors
A new study published in the Journal of the American Heart Association found that men who feel anxious or overwhelmed in life can develop heart disease risk factors like obesity, high blood pressure and high cholesterol at a faster rate than their less-worried peers.
To conduct the study, a research team led by study author Lewina Lee, an investigator and clinical psychologist at the National Center for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, analyzed 40 years of data collected from the VA’s Boston Outpatient Clinic.
The data collected between 1975 and 2015 included 1,561 men, mostly white veterans in their early 50s, who had completed regular screenings like physical exams, blood tests and mail-in surveys with questions to assess for neuroticism every three to five years until they died or until the study ended.
The findings from the study show the men developed an average of 3.8 cardiometabolic risk factors by age 65, and individuals with higher levels of neuroticism were 13% more likely to develop six or more cardiometabolic risk factors as they aged.
Further, men who said they were frequently worried were 10% more likely to accumulate six or more cardiometabolic risk factors.
Although the study did not address whether treating anxiety can reduce heart-related health risks, researchers recommend actions like routine health checkups, maintaining healthy weight or taking blood pressure medications to decrease the likelihood of developing risk factors for heart disease.
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