Losing your job increases heart attack risk

If you've lost your job, you probably aren't surprised by this, as it causes great stress.

http://vitals.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/11/19/15285074-losing-your-job-increases-heart-attack-risk?lite

By Linda Carroll
Nov. 20, 2012

Losing your job can give you a heart attack – quite literally.

Duke University researchers have found that unemployment significantly raises the risk of a heart attack. And that risk goes up with each job loss and with increasing time spent unemployed, according to a study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

In fact, one job loss raised the risk of a heart attack by 35 percent, while four job losses raised the risk by 63 percent. The unemployed were at greatest risk of a heart attack within the year following a layoff or firing.

“Looking at a lifetime of exposure to a social stressor such as unemployment – the number of times a person has lost a job or the amount of time they’re without a job – there’s an independent association with heart attacks,” says the study’s lead author Matthew E. Dupre, an assistant professor of at Duke and a senior fellow at the university’s Center for the Study of Aging.

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“The fact that the associations remained largely unchanged despite accounting for more than a dozen suspected risk factors was somewhat unexpected,” he says. “Changes in income, health insurance, health behaviors, physical health status, and the like had little impact on the risks related to unemployment. Instead, we found that the risks associated with multiple job losses were of the magnitude of other established risk factors, such as smoking, hypertension, and diabetes.”

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Heart experts said that the study adds to the mounting evidence that certain kinds of stressors can ramp up the risk of a cardiovascular event.

“This is adding to what we know with regards to the triggers of cardiovascular events,” says Dr. John Schindler, an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. “Many years ago we thought of this as a random process. Now we see there are real triggers, whether environmental or perceived stress.”

Recent studies have turned up numerous emotional triggers, including frustration, depression, and anxiety, Schindler says. “And all of those go along with unemployment,” he adds.

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