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This is yet another study illustrating the connection between the mind and a person’s heart health, said cardiologist Dr Glenn Levine, professor of medicine at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston who did not participate in the study.
When developing the AHA statement, “we looked at all the data we could find and we concluded that negative psychological health factors such as stress are clearly associated with many cardiovascular risk factors, ”Levine said.
The good news, said Levine, is that because the mind, heart and body are interconnected and interdependent, a person can also improve their cardiovascular health by striving to have a positive psychological outlook.
“You can decide to change your mindset about this stressful situation or to set limits – just being aware that you can prevent this stress from becoming toxic to you,” said Dr. Cynthia Ackrill, management expert. stress, editor of Contentment magazine, produced by the American Institute of Stress.
“We shouldn’t neglect our ability to play a role in our well-being,” said Ackrill, who was not involved in the study.
More impact on the youngest
The new study followed 412 multiracial adults aged 48 to 87 with normal blood pressure, measuring urinary stress hormone levels at multiple points in time between 2005 and 2018. The hormone levels were then compared to any cardiovascular event. that could have happened, such as high blood pressure, heart pain, heart attacks and bypass surgery.
“Previous research has focused on the relationship between stress hormone levels and hypertension or cardiovascular events in patients with existing hypertension. However, studies in adults without hypertension were lacking,” he said. said study author Dr Kosuke Inoue, assistant professor of social epidemiology in Kyoto. University of Japan, in a statement.
The study tested three hormones – norepinephrine, epinephrine, and dopamine – that regulate the autonomic nervous system and control involuntary bodily functions such as heart rate, blood pressure, and breathing.
Inoue and his team also looked at the levels of cortisol, a steroid hormone released by the body in response to acute stress such as danger. Once the danger is over, the body reduces cortisol production – but if a person is constantly stressed, cortisol levels may remain elevated.
“Norepinephrine, epinephrine, dopamine and cortisol can increase with stress caused by events in life, work, relationships, finances and more,” said Inoue.
Doubling levels of cortisol alone – but not norepinephrine, epinephrine, or dopamine – was associated with a 90% higher risk of having a cardiovascular event, according to the study.
Every time the combined levels of the four stress hormones doubled, the risk of developing high blood pressure increased between 21% and 31%. The effect was most pronounced in people under the age of 60, a worrying finding, according to the researchers.
“Against this background, our results generate a hypothesis that stress hormones play an essential role in the pathogenesis of hypertension in the younger population,” they wrote.
The study had limitations, including the lack of a control group and the use of a single measurement – urinalysis – to test for stress hormones, the authors noted.
Still, examining urinary stress hormone measurements over time is “clean and new,” Levine said. “It’s a somewhat objective way, as far as we can tell with flawed tools, of categorizing people who are likely to be more stressed most of the time.”
What to do?
Wait a minute, you say. I want to know if I’m stressed out, but I can’t go out and take a urine test. How do I know if I am at risk for heart problems due to higher levels of stress hormones?
“While obviously not all of us know what our urine cortisol levels are, there are ways to learn to think through whether we may have negative psychological factors, especially things like stress. “Levine said.
“If we recognize that we tend to be frequently stressed, frustrated or angry, then it is helpful to ask ourselves what exactly are the things that cause us to become stressed,” he added. “Once we’ve done that, we can really sit down and decide, is it worth it to let these things lead me to become stressed or frustrated?”
Being aware of what is triggering your stress allows you to stop those automatic hormonal responses before they trigger your circulatory system, Ackrill said.
“The mechanism of stress is that we get excited about something so that our sympathetic nervous system will speed everything up. We need our heart to pump quickly to maintain our blood pressure so that we have good circulation and we can move away from danger. ,” she said.
“You want to step in earlier, when you’re just starting to increase your stress response, with deep breathing or some other relaxation response,” Ackrill added.
This will allow your upper executive brain to boot, giving you options on how to handle the situation.
“A lot of times we let our minds react quickly to something before we really have had time to allow our higher levels of cognitive functioning, our prefrontal cortex, to weigh in,” Levine said. “We want to pause, think and digest this, and take a few seconds to decide what is the most skillful way to react.”
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