IS WORRYING BAD FOR YOUR HEART - A PROSPECTIVE-STUDY OF WORRY AND CORONARY HEART-DISEASE IN THE NORMATIVE AGING STUDY

Background Worry is an important component of anxiety, which recent wo rk suggests is related to increased incidence of coronary heart diseas e (CHD). Chronic worry has also been associated with decreased heart r ate variability. We hypothesized that high levels of worry may increas e CHD risk. Method and Results We examined prospectively the relations hip of worry with CHD incidence in the Normative Aging Study, an ongoi ng cohort of older men. In 1975, 1759 men free of diagnosed CHD comple ted a Worries Scale, indicating the extent to which they worried about each of five worry domains: social conditions, health, financial, sel f-definition, and aging. During 20 years of follow-up, 323 cases of in cident CHD occurred: 113 cases of nonfatal myocardial infarction (MI); 86 cases of fatal CHD; and 124 cases of angina pectoris. Worry about social conditions was the domain most strongly associated with inciden t CHD. Compared with men reporting the lowest levels of social conditi ons worry, men reporting the highest levels had multivariate adjusted relative risks of 2.41 (95% CI, 1.40 to 4.13) for nonfatal MI and 1.48 (95% CI, 0.99 to 2.20) far total CHD (nonfatal MI and fatal CHD). A d ose-response relation was found between level of worry and both nonfat al MI (P for trend, .002) and total CHD (P for trend, .04). Conclusion s These results suggest that high levels of worry in specific domains may increase the risk of CHD in older men.