New research suggests that post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) can put women's "hearts and brains at risk," CNN reported.
Researchers, led by Jennifer Sumner of Columbia University, found that women who experience traumatic events or develop PTSD had a significantly greater risk of developing cardiovascular disease (both heart attacks and stroke) than women with no traumatic history.
"Our study is the first to look at trauma exposure and PTSD symptoms and new cases of cardiovascular disease in a general population sample of women,"Jennifer Sumner, lead author of the study, told HealthDay.
PTSD, which affects nearly 8 million American adults, occurs in some people after traumatic events. The mental health condition "can wreak havoc on a person's ability to deal with small disturbances, such as a loud noise or an upsetting story in the news, and it can keep them from getting good sleep," CNN reported. It is also twice as common in women as in men.
For the study, researchers collected and analyzed data from nearly 50,000 women who participated in the Nurses' Health Study II.
They found that women with four or more PTSD symptoms had 60 percent higher rates of cardiovascular disease compared to women who weren't exposed to traumatic events. Women with no PTSD symptoms but who reported traumatic events had 45 percent higher rates of cardiovascular disease
They also found that close to half of the association between elevated PTSD symptoms and cardiovascular disease was accounted for by unhealthy behaviors like smoking, obesity, lack of exercise and medical factors such as high blood pressure.
"PTSD is generally considered a psychological problem, but the take-home message from our findings is that it also has a profound impact on physical health, especially cardiovascular risk," Sumner said in a statement. "This is not exclusively a mental problem -- it's a potentially deadly problem of the body as well."
The findings are detailed in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.
