The Role of Emotions in Heart Attacks

For several years there has been a growing body of evidence indicating that mental stress and negative emotions do play a part in heart attacks. A new study could help us understand more about how our emotions affect our heart health

By Tom Britt

Friday, January 28, 2000

print | email |



Durham, N.C. -- The National Institutes of Health is funding a five-year study that will try to answer the question of just what part our emotions might play in a heart attack. James Blumenthal of Duke University Medical Center is heading up a team of researchers from Duke and UNC-Chapel Hill. He says this $4.3 million study will be among the first to include a significant segment of women and minorities.

"In our previous work we didn't have a randomized trial. We didn't systematically examine mechanisms. Our hope in this particular study is to include far more women than we did previously and also really enhance our minority recruitment, which I think will increase our generalizability."

Blumenthal says it is well-established that certain risk factors such as smoking, high cholesterol and high blood pressure can lead to a heart attack, but these factors alone do not account for the timing or occurrence of all heart attacks. This new study could help determine if our emotions are the trigger. I'm Tom Britt.

Blumenthal says most previous studies have not only ignored the stress factor, but have also not included enough women and minorities.

"This is one of a handful of studies that have systematically examined the impact of stress management and exercise in treating patients with established coronary disease and then having a large enough sample of minorities and women to make some conclusions about how effective these interventions are."