Health Psychology and Heart Disease - Part 1

Health psychology and heart disease seem to go hand in hand. Why? Because heart disease, as with most illnesses and conditions from which we may suffer, are impacted by our attitude and belief systems. Health psychology deals with understanding how the biology of your illness or condition relates to your behavior and social influences.

Recent studies published in the Journal of Internal Medicine in 1997, by researchers at Duke University Medical Center in North Carolina, found that patients who learned stress management using health psychology and heart disease, had a lower risk of heart attack after having suffered from ischemia and coronary vessel disease. The results over five years showed that the group that received stress management had a 74% reduction in cardiac events, improvement in blood cholesterol/fat profiles and reduced ischemia.

At the University of Pittsburgh, researches linked extreme increases in blood pressure to mental stress and associated it with thickening of the carotid arteries (arteries that feed the brain). Their results, published in Circulation 1997, found that increased stress and high blood pressure over long periods of time may trigger heart attacks and strokes. (1)

In fact, research has linked health psychology to heart disease, back pain, likelihood to report workman’s comp cases, recovery from injury, and recovery from surgery. In an article published in the Journal of American Medical Association, researchers found that out of 419 patients found to have hypertension at the doctors office, 26% measured normal pressure measurements at home. This has been coined the “White Coat Syndrome” and believed to be affected by stress. Health psychology and heart disease are linked. (2)

References:

(1) Circulation: Exaggerated Blood Pressure Responses During Mental Stress are Associated with Enhanced Carotid Atherosclerosis

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9403606

(2) Blood pressure: Cardiovascular Risk in White-Coat and Sustained Hypertensive Patients

http://www.staessen.net/publications/2001-2005/02-57-P.pdf

Resources:

American Psychological Association: Mind/Body Health: Heart Disease

http://www.apa.org/helpcenter/heart-disease.aspx

University of Wisconsin: Heart, Vascular and Thorascic Care

http://www.uwhealth.org/heart-cardiovascular/health-psychology-for-healthy-hearts/38645

Academia: Psychological Interventions and Coronary Heart Disease

http://www.academia.edu/807832/Psychological_Interventions_and_Coronary_Heart_Disease