-Source-Yahoo-
Adults with mood disorders like anxiety and depression may be more likely to have a heart attack or stroke than people without mental illness, a new study suggests.
Researchers enrolled 221,677 people age 45 and older without any history of heart attack or stroke and tracked them for an average of nearly five years.
More than 90 percent of participants were ages 45 to 79. In this age group, compared to men without mental health issues at the start, men with moderate psychological distress were 28 percent more likely to have a heart attack during the study and 20 percent more likely to have a stroke. Men in this age group with high levels of distress were 60 percent more likely to have a heart attack and 44 percent more likely to have a stroke.
Women ages 45 to 79 with moderate psychological problems were 12 percent more likely to have a heart attack and 28 percent more likely to have a stroke than women without any mental distress. Women with high psychological distress were 24 percent more likely to have a heart attack and 68 percent more likely to have a stroke.
"The stronger association between psychological distress and heart attack in men compared to women could be due to women being more likely than men to seek primary care for mental and physical health problems, thus partly negating the possible physical effects of mental health problems," said lead study author Caroline Jackson of the University of Edinburgh in the U.K. Read more
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