Fatigue, irritability, and demoralization can affect your heart health

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2014-11/tmsh-fia111714.php

PUBLIC RELEASE DATE: 17-Nov-2014

Contact: Lauren Woods
The Mount Sinai Hospital / Mount Sinai School of Medicine
Fatigue, irritability, and demoralization can affect your heart health
Mount Sinai study shows vital exhaustion may raise risk of cardiovascular disease

Fatigue, increased irritability, and feeling demoralized, may raise a healthy man or woman's risk of first-time cardiovascular disease by 36 percent, according to a study led by researchers at Mount Sinai St. Luke's and Mount Sinai Roosevelt hospitals presented on Nov. 17 at the American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions 2014 in Chicago, IL.

The combination of fatigue, increased irritability, and feeling demoralized is medically known as vital exhaustion. In their study, Mount Sinai researchers found that vital exhaustion was associated with a dramatic increase in risk for first-time cardiovascular disease when compared to people not experiencing these three psychological factors.

"Our study shows vital exhaustion is an important risk factor for the development of cardiovascular disease in otherwise healthy people," says lead author Randy Cohen, MD, Medical Director of the University Medical Practice Associates at Mount Sinai St. Luke's and Mount Sinai Roosevelt. "Loss of vitality thus adds to a growing number of psychosocial risk factors that have now been linked to the development of cardiovascular disease, including anxiety, depression, and social isolation."

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