05/27/2002
By Harvey McConnell
Associations between psychological stress and heart disease may be artificial; patients who perceive themselves to be under higher stress also report more heart symptoms, say British researchers. In a prospective, observational study, investigators followed 5,606 Scottish men (mean age 48 years at baseline) from 27 workplaces for 21 years.
Five years later, they re-screened 2,623 of the men. Screening measures included self-perception of psychological stress, coronary risk factors, self-reported angina and ischaemia detected by electrocardiography. Led by Dr. John Macleod from the University of Birmingham, the researchers from University of Bristol and the University of Glasgow, say, “The lack of a corresponding relation with objective indices of heart disease suggests that these symptoms did not reflect physical disease.
” They found a strong and substantial relationship between self-reported stress and self-reported symptoms of coronary heart disease. But, they found a relation of similar strength and magnitude between stress and admission to hospital for psychiatric disorders.
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