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posted by martyb on Thursday January 12 2017, @04:58PM   Printer-friendly
from the now-I-have-even-MORE-to-worry-about dept.

Increased activity in the amygdala may be linked to a greater risk of developing cardiovascular disease:

The effect of constant stress on a deep-lying region of the brain explains the increased risk of heart attack, a study in The Lancet suggests. In a study of 300 people, those with higher activity in the amygdala were more likely to develop cardiovascular disease - and sooner than others.

Stress could be as important a risk factor as smoking and high blood pressure, the US researchers said. Heart experts said at-risk patients should be helped to manage stress. Emotional stress has long been linked with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD), which affects the heart and blood vessels - but the way this happens has not been properly understood.

This study [DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(16)31714-7] [DX], led by a team from Harvard Medical School, points to heightened activity in the amygdala - an area of the brain that processes emotions such as fear and anger - as helping to explain the link. The researchers suggest that the amygdala signals to the bone marrow to produce extra white blood cells, which in turn act on the arteries causing them to become inflamed. This can then cause heart attacks, angina and strokes.


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  • (Score: 2) by stormwyrm on Friday January 13 2017, @06:47AM

    by stormwyrm (717) on Friday January 13 2017, @06:47AM (#453197) Journal

    It’s not quite ‘Well duh…’ These scientists didn’t just confirm it, it seems they discovered an actual physiological mechanism for stress-related heart disease. Everyone and their mum and grandma always knew that stress was a factor in heart disease, but no one could tell you why, how, or quantify how much, until these scientists did their study. So now that this is known, some ideas for treatments that might help suggest themselves. Therapies that block or otherwise control the signalling pathway that the amygdala uses to tell bone marrow produce more white blood cells might be promising, for instance.

    In this first study to link regional brain activity to subsequent cardiovascular disease, amygdalar activity independently and robustly predicted cardiovascular disease events. Amygdalar activity is involved partly via a path that includes increased bone-marrow activity and arterial inflammation. These findings provide novel insights into the mechanism through which emotional stressors can lead to cardiovascular disease in human beings.

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