Scientists Discover How Stress Increases the Risk for Heart Attack and Stroke

Most people know that stress can increase your risk for heart attack. But what mechanisms are at play that actually cause this increased risk? Scientists have found that anger, anxiety and depression cause progressive damage that can increase the risk of heart disease.

It's thought that persisting stress can increase the risk for atherosclerosis and cardiovascular disease by evoking negative emotions that can raise the levels of pro-inflammatory chemicals in the body. These chemicals can cause progressive damage to blood vessels supplying the heart and brain.

"Drawing upon the observation that many of the same brain areas involved in emotion are also involved in sensing and regulating levels of inflammation in the body, we hypothesized that brain activity linked to negative emotions--specifically efforts to regulate negative emotions--would relate to physical signs of risk for heart disease," said Peter Gianaros, one of the researchers, in a news release.

The researchers examined 157 healthy adult volunteers who were asked to regulate their emotional reactions to unpleasant pictures while their brain activity was measured with functional imaging. The scientists also scanned their arteries for signs of atherosclerosis to assess their heart disease risk.

So what did they find? The volunteers who showed greater brain activation when regulating negative emotions also exhibited elevated blood levels of one of the body's pro-inflammatory cytokines, and increased thickness of the carotid artery wall.

"These new findings agree with the popular belief that emotions are connected to heart health," said Gianaros in a news release. "We think that the mechanistic basis for this connection may lie in the functioning of brain regions important for regulating both emotion and inflammation."

The findings are important for better understand what factors contribute to heart disease. If these factors are preventable, like avoiding stress, then it's possible to help cut the risk of heart disease.

The findings are published in the journal Biological Psychiatry.