Emotional attitude unrelated to heart disease, study finds

BOSTON, Massachusetts (Reuters) -- Feeling depressed? Lonely? Stressed? A new study finds those feelings won't affect your chance of having a heart attack.

A study of 630 U.S. Army personnel found that levels of anxiety, hostility, depression and stress bear no relationship to the likelihood of developing clogged arteries, according to a report in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine.

Instead, researchers found hypochondriacs who are stressed out about their health are the least likely to develop the calcifications that are the hallmark of unwanted buildup of deposits in the heart.

The findings are based on a technique known as electron-beam computed tomography, which can find calcification in the arteries that feed the heart muscle.

A team from Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., led by Dr. Patrick G. O'Malley, compared the amount of calcification in each volunteer's heart to their scores on three psychological tests that assess moods and feelings.

They found signs of calcification in 21 percent of the men and 4 percent of the women. The rates were highest in overweight men with the highest levels of "bad" cholesterol, total cholesterol and triglycerides, and high blood pressure.

But "depression, anxiety, hostility and stress were not significantly associated with coronary-artery calcification," the O'Malley team concluded. "There was no significant difference between those with and those without psychological disorders" and the likelihood of having arteries that were beginning to clog up.

However, the volunteers with the highest "somatization" score, or those who repeatedly complained of physical symptoms when no physical problem could be identified, had the lowest rates of calcification.

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American Heart Association National Center

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