by Dr. Malcolm Kendrick, M.D.

It has long been recognised that fatal heart attacks can follow stressful events. The stressor can be physical, or emotional.

However, the final event in heart disease is not what I am really talking about here. The more complex, and therefore the more interesting question, is whether or not long term psychological stress can cause the gradual build up of atherosclerosis, leading to widespread cardiovascular disease.
 
I strongly believe that it can, and that the evidence is robust. Clearly though, suggesting that, for example, a lack of social support, leading to chronic negative stress, can eventually lead to an atherosclerotic plaque developing in an artery in the heart requires more than one step to be explained. So, how does it work?

How Stress Causes Heart Disease

Dr. Malcolm Kendrick (MbChB MRCGP) M.D.
Dr. Kendrick has worked in family practice for almost twenty years.
He has specialized in heart disease and set up the online educational website for the European Society of Cardiology.
He is a peer-reviewer for the British Medical Journal.

 

Dr. Graveline is going to be answering questions for the spacedoc.net site in a special interview. Special, because it is the readers of this newsletter that will be asking the questions.

 

So simply submit your question ( or questions ) and a few will be selected and Dr. Graveline will give his answers in this newsletter in a week or two.

 

Questions can be on any topic from the spacedoc.net site.

 

Make sure they are general questions, for as always, personal medical questions cannot be answered.

 

So send your question or questions for Dr. Graveline to newsletter@spacedoc.net
Put Question in the e-mail subject line. Or just reply to this e-mail newsletter.

 

 

 

 

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