Posttraumatic stress may lead to heart disease

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Older men with symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, are at increased risk for developing coronary heart disease, a study of veterans shows.

PTSD may be best known as a consequence of combat exposure, but people can also develop the disorder after suffering other types of trauma, such as a car crash, fall or other accident. Symptoms include flashbacks to the incident, nightmares, sleep problems, depression, irritability and difficulty concentrating.

"To our knowledge, this is the first study to demonstrate a prospective association between PTSD symptoms and coronary heart disease even after controlling for depressive symptoms," Dr. Laura D. Kubzansky, from the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, and colleagues note in the Archives of General Psychiatry for January.

Their findings are based on a study of 1,946 older men from the Greater Boston area who served in the military and were assessed for PTSD in 1986 or 1990. The subjects were followed until 2001 for the occurrence of coronary heart disease.

For each step up in PTSD level, using standard PTSD scales, the risk of having a fatal or non-fatal heart attack increased by 26 percent, the researcher report.

"These data suggest that prolonged stress and significant levels of PTSD symptoms may increase the risk for coronary heart disease in older male veterans," Kubzansky's team concludes.

"These results are provocative and suggest that exposure to trauma and prolonged stress not only may increase the risk for serious mental health problems but are also cardiotoxic," they add.

SOURCE: Archives of General Psychiatry, January 2007.