It's All In Your Brain
Stress
might seem like an unavoidable reality of modern life, but your body isn’t as
quick to write it off as such: in fact, being stressed takes a serious—and
lasting—toll on your life, and according to a growing number of studies, it
also increases your risk of heart disease.
Now, according to a new years-long study published in The Lancet, scientists report that
having a more active amygdala—the brain region triggered during moments of
stress—is linked to a higher risk for heart disease and stroke.
In the study, 293 people without heart problems were given a
PET/CT scan to measure brain activity, bone marrow activity and inflammation of
the arteries. These three areas interact in important ways in animal models,
says study author and cardiologist Dr. Ahmed Tawakol, co-director of the
Cardiac MR PET CT Program at Massachusetts General Hospital. Stress, it seems,
triggers the amygdala, which then activates bone marrow and inflammation of
arteries.
Scientists don’t yet know whether the same is true for
humans. But if it were, then people with the most active amygdalas would be the
ones with the highest risk of heart attack and strokes. That’s exactly what
Tawakol and his team found almost four years later when they followed up. In
people with more active amygdalas, these bad heart events also seemed to happen
sooner. They also had increased bone marrow activity and inflammation in the
arteries.
You may not even need a brain scan to find out your true
stress levels. In a small separate study, the researchers asked 13 people with
higher-than-usual stress to rate how stressed they generally felt using a
psychological questionnaire. “We found that their perception of stress nicely
related to activity in their amygdala,” Tawakol says. Those who said they were
the most stressed really had the most active amygdalae. The researchers also
found that a person’s perceived stress was related to their levels of
inflammation.
The study is purely observational and needs to be substantiated
in larger trials. But this intriguing new pathway for how stress may take a
toll on the heart presents a powerful case for stress relief. “So far, it
appears that things like mindfulness and other stress reduction approaches seem
to really nicely tamp down on the amygdala, and they appear to even cause
benefits in other areas of the brain,” says Tawakol.
“When I talk to my patients, I tell them that we’re learning
that diet, exercise, and stress reduction are some of our most compelling
tools—it’s a little humbling,” he adds. “Even though it’s unsexy and doesn’t
really show the best technology that we have to offer our patients, at the end
it is probably the best advice.”
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar