Stress and Cardiovascular Disease - New Paper by the European Heart Network
The European Heart Network (EHN) has recently published a 40-page paper entitled "Stress and cardiovascular disease". This paper surveys the major studies covering several aspects of stress and cardiovascular disease (CVD).
The paper seeks to examine the importance of stress as an independent factor in the incidence and the course of CVD.
It argues that because stress is more difficult for health care practitioners to define and assess than widely accepted coronary risk factors (such as physical activity, tobacco smoking, serum cholesterol and blood pressure) the concept has played a much more important role in ideas about cardiovascular disease among laymen than among experts.
Some major studies on stress in the workplace are summarised, looking in particular at factors such as job strain and shift work. The effect of social class and gender on the incidence of CVD is also explored.
The study discusses some of the biological mechanisms of stress, including regulation of cortisol levels, heart rate variability, blood pressure, plasma fibrinogen levels, inflammatory responses and other immune reactions, and testosterone/oestrogen levels.
The paper looks at research that has confirmed the importance of stress as an independent risk factor in the incidence and the course of CVD. The paper’s authors conclude that “the evidence is good enough at this point to provide biological plausibility for the relationship between stress and heart disease.”
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