Women: Don’t Panic, It may Hurt Your Heart!


Reported October 3, 2007

(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- Older women who have experienced at least one full-blown panic attack may have an increased risk for cardiovascular problems … and even death.

A team of researchers led by Jordan Smoller, M.D., Sc.D., of Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, collected data from 3,369 healthy postmenopausal women between ages 51 and 83 years. About 10 percent of the women reported having a full-blown panic attack within six months of entering the study.
 

The women participating in the study were monitored for an average of 5.3 years. Once data was analyzed, researchers found women who had one or more panic attacks were at four times the risk of heart attack alone, three times the risk of heart attack or stroke, and twice the risk of dying from any cause.

Panic attacks involve sudden fright or anxiety, as well as extreme discomfort along with four or more cognitive or autonomic symptoms.

This study places panic attacks on a list of emotional states and psychiatric symptoms that could be linked to cardiovascular disease or mortality. Authors of the study conclude, “Older women with a recent history of panic attacks represent a subgroup at elevated risk of [heart attack] and stroke in whom careful monitoring and cardiovascular risk reduction may be particularly important.”


SOURCE: Archives of General Psychiatry, 2007;64:1153-1160