By IANS
New York : Feelings of hostility combined with depression appear to trigger a greater risk of heart attacks, a new study in the US has said.
Previous studies have found that depression raises the level of inflammatory proteins in the body and also confirmed links between hostility and inflammatory proteins that are predictive of heart disease.
In the new study researchers led by Jesse Stewart at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis looked at the symptoms of depression and hostility simultaneously in older adults, science portal EurekAlert reported.
They found that the relationship of these negative emotions with inflammatory markers is more complex and much stronger than depression or hostility individually. Stewart said that depression and hostility tend to co-occur within individuals.
The findings that hostility enhances inflammatory processes relevant to heart disease only in the presence of depressive symptoms are published in the February-March 2008 issue of Psychosomatic Medicine.
According to Stewart, the strength of the association of psychological factors with future heart disease is similar to that of traditional risk factors like smoking, high blood pressure and elevated cholesterol.
“There are of course mental health reasons to treat depression and hostility. Now we know there is a physical health reason – the link to cardiovascular diseases,” Stewart said.
However, psychological risk factors for heart disease merit further study, the scientist added.