Does Stress Really Cause Heart Disease?
–>May 23, 2002 — One of the best ways to reduce your risk of a heart attack is to limit the stress in your life, right? Well, maybe not. New research questions the widely held belief that living with stress is a risk factor for health problems like heart disease. Researchers in Scotland followed a group of men for more than 20 years and found that those who reported the most stress actually died less often from heart attacks and had fewer objective signs of heart disease. Surprisingly, these men also tended to smoke more, drink more, and exercise less than other men in the study. “We aren’t saying that stress protects your heart, and we certainly aren’t saying that smoking, drinking to excess, and taking no exercise are good for you,” says lead author John Macleod, MD, of the University of Birmingham in England. “Of course, these things are bad for you. But we found that with regard to stress, other factors came into play.” Specifically, Macleod and colleagues found that men reportin
–>May 23, 2002 — One of the best ways to reduce your risk of a heart attack is to limit the stress in your life, right? Well, maybe not. New research questions the widely held belief that living with stress is a risk factor for health problems like heart disease. Researchers in Scotland followed a group of men for more than 20 years and found that those who reported the most stress actually died less often from heart attacks and had fewer objective signs of heart disease. Surprisingly, these men also tended to smoke more, drink more, and exercise less than other men in the study. “We aren’t saying that stress protects your heart, and we certainly aren’t saying that smoking, drinking to excess, and taking no exercise are good for you,” says lead author John Macleod, MD, of the University of Birmingham in England. “Of course, these things are bad for you. But we found that with regard to stress, other factors came into play.” Specifically, Macleod and colleagues found that men reportin
