Phobias and sudden cardiac death link July 19, 2009
Women who have high levels of phobic anxiety have a higher chance of developing fatal coronary heart disease and sudden cardiac death.
This is according to one of the speakers at the American Heart Association’s 44th Annual Conference on Cardiovascular Disease Epidemiology and Prevention conference, San Francisco, USA.
Delegates were told of research examining the relationship between phobic anxiety and cardiac events among female participants in the Nurses’ Health Study.
A total of 72,357 women with no history of heart disease or cancer answered the questions in the Crown-Crisp phobic anxiety index in 1988. During the following12 years, there were 930 non-fatal MIs, 267 total CHD deaths and 97 sudden cardiac deaths.
There were significant trends for increased risk of sudden cardiac death and fatal CHD with increasing phobic anxiety scores.