Mental Stress Affects Men and Women's Heart Health Differently

Men and women deal with health issues differently, based on a variety of genetic components. A recent study shows that each sexes' different psychological reaction to stress will ultimately influence their heart health quite differently as well.

"The relationship between mental stress and cardiovascular disease is well known," said lead study author Zainab Samad, M.D., M.H.S., assistant professor of medicine at Duke University Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina, in a news release. "This study revealed that mental stress affects the cardiovascular health of men and women differently. We need to recognize this difference when evaluating and treating patients for cardiovascular disease."

For the study, researchers recruited 254 male and 56 female participants who were being treated for heart disease, with a sample taken from the REMIT study that focused on the effects of treating heart disease caused by mental stress with the medication, escitalopram.

Participants were required to complete three mentally stressful assignments that were a mental arithmetic test, a mirror tracing test and an anger recall test. All were also asked to undergo a treadmill test, while researchers collected blood samples and heart measurements via a echocardiogram between tests.

Findings revealed that male participants were more likely to have mental problems that affected their blood pressure and heart rate. Female participants, on the other hand, had greater mental stress that impacted the blood flow to their heart. Women were also more likely to suffer from myocardial ischemia-a condition that's characterized by lower blood flow to the heart.

"At this point, further studies are needed to test the association of sex differences in the heart's responses to mental stress and long term outcomes," Samad said according to the press release. "This study also underscores the inadequacy of available risk prediction tools, which currently fail to measure an entire facet of risk, i.e. the impact of negative physiological responses to psychological stress in both sexes, and especially so among women."

More information regarding the findings can be seen via the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.