Wellness U - Stress and Heart Disease

Beaver Medical Group Patient Newsletter - Cardiac Issue 2004

 

	If you ask most people, they would agree with the statement that people under a lot of stress have an increased risk for heart disease. But is that really true? According to one of Beaver Medical Group’s cardiologists, Dr. Thomas Makowski, it is not as clear-cut as the connection between smoking and heart disease because “stress” is much harder to define and quantify. This difficulty has led to relatively few scientific studies, but this is slowly changing. In the May 2002 issue of Psychosomatic Medicine, researchers found that in men, psychological distress-specifically unsatisfactory social supports and poor coping skills were connected to poor health habits like not enough exercise and a poor diet. These factors led to an increased risk for metabolic syndrome, a risk factor for heart disease. Metabolic syndrome is a pre-diabetic phase consisting of obesity, high blood sugar, high triglycerides, and low HDL (good cholesterol). Interestingly, this connection was less clear in women, possibly due to their hormones or different response to stressors. Another group of researchers from the University College London looked at how much control men had in their work and how they viewed their wealth and found similar connections between stress hormone levels and metabolic syndrome. The stress response, also called the fight-or-flight response, triggers specific changes in our body by releasing hormones such as adrenaline and cortisol in order to enhance the odds of surviving whatever “threat” we are facing. This is designed for our survival, temporarily turning us into supermen and superwomen. For example, the stress response releases blood glucose and fatty acids in our blood for more energy. It also increases blood pressure to pump more blood to the muscles, and it increases our clotting ability in case we get cut. Chronic stress leads to a depressed immune system because of the enormous energy needs by the body to stay at “red alert”, even though the threat has passed. It is not clear whether a chronically stressed-out person is more likely to smoke, have a poor diet, and not exercise enough, which are all well-documented risk factors for heart disease, or whether the increased levels of stress hormones directly increase heart disease risk. Either way, it is a good idea to save your stress response for true emergencies. Learning stress management techniques will not only help you to decrease the negative side effects of the stress response, but also help you to prevent triggering it in the first place.
	Exercise and eating right are also part of an overall stress management program, so together, you can decrease the overall risk of heart disease. For more information on how to join our free stress management program, contact the Health Education Department at 909-335-4131 for the next Stress Management Class held on Tuesday evenings or sign up online.
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