Life course psychological distress and cardiovascular disease risk factors in middle age: birth cohort study

Recent findings suggest that psychological distress in childhood —a combination of symptoms of anxiety and depression—particularly when persistent across the life course is related to an elevated rate of cardiovascular disease mortality in older age.1 Several mechanisms have been implicated with one possibility being that people who experience distress in early life, and particularly its recurrence across the life course, may become more susceptible to vascular disease via differences in physiological development. There is, however, a paucity of studies holding data on early distress and biological risk factors for cardiovascular disease in adulthood.
Source: Cardiovascular Research - Category: Cardiology Source Type: research