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Stress and Heart DiseaseSTUDIES REVEAL LINK BETWEEN STRESS AND HEART DISEASE FACTORS A study in the American Journal of Hypertension (Volume 17, pages 1179 - 1183) shows that regular monitoring of blood pressure reveals there is a Monday morning surge in a community population. Although there are weekly variations due to stress events, there is a distinct peak on Monday with a higher incidence of cardiovascular events on that day. Few studies have investigated weekly variations in blood pressure (BP). Here is an outline of the findings: 135 community-dwelling subjects had 24hour ambulatory BP monitoring done for seven days. The mean blood pressure readings were taken awake, asleep, morning (during the first 3 h after awaking) BP, and morning BP surge (mean morning systolic BP minus mean asleep systolic BP) for each day. HYPERTENSION MONDAY-SURGE RESULTSThe results were that a Monday surge in BP was found in the awake and morning BP (awake BP: 128.8 ± 15.4/79.1 ± 9.2 v 131.5 ± 16.3/80.7 ± 10.0 mm Hg, P < 0.01, respectively; morning BP: 127.3 ± 17.8/78.8 ± 11.4 v 132.5 ± 18.2/81.2 ± 10.0 mm Hg, P < 0.01, respectively) but was not found in the asleep BP (112.7 ± 18.3/68.4 ± 10.7 v 113.1 ± 17.6/68.7 ± 10.5 mm Hg,respectively). The morning BP surge on Monday was higher than on the other days of the week except for Tuesday (Monday: 19.7 ± 13.3 mm Hg v Friday: 16.4 ± 12.9 mm Hg, P < 0.05; v Saturday: 14.7 ± 13.3 mm Hg, P < 0.01 v Sunday: 13.7 ± 12.0 mm Hg, P < 0.01; v Wednesday: 15.5 ± 14.3 mm Hg, P < 0.01). The study concluded that morning BP surge was the greatest on Monday in a community population. This is in accord with other clinical studies that show cardiovascular events more frequently occur in the morning on Monday, which is perceived by many to be a high stress day. ANOTHER STUDY REVEALS LINK BETWEEN STRESS, OBESITY AND HEART DISEASE In research done at Wake Forest University School of Medicine it was shown that social stress is an important precursor to heart disease by causing the body to deposit more fat in the abdominal cavity, speeding the harmful buildup of plaque in blood vessels, a stepping stone to the number one cause of death in the world - heart disease. Click here to read the full article ...
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