A HYPOCHANDRIACS TALE

Postmenopausal women who've had at least one panic attack may be at greater risk for heart disease, stroke and even death, new research suggests.

The study found that older women with a history of panic attacks were four times more likely to have heart disease than women who hadn't had a panic attack.

"Women who reported at least one panic attack were at higher risk of having cardiovascular illness and death after an average of five years of follow-up. Even after controlling for other risk factors, a panic attack remained an independent risk factor on its own," said study author Dr. Jordan Smoller, an associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.

Symptoms of a panic attack include a sudden feeling of fear, anxiety or extreme discomfort that's out of proportion to your current situation. Panic attacks may also be accompanied by a rapid or irregular heartbeat, sweating, hot flashes, chills, chest pain, difficulty breathing, shaking, dizziness and a feeling that you might die. About one in 10 postmenopausal women has had at least one panic attack, according to the study.

The research, published in the October issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry, included 3,369 postmenopausal women between the ages of 51 and 83. All of the women completed questionnaires about the occurrence of panic attacks in the previous six months. A full-blown panic attack was one in which sudden fear was accompanied by at least four other panic attack symptoms. A limited panic attack was one in which fear was accompanied by one to three additional symptoms.

After an average 5.3 years of follow-up, the researchers collected information on heart disease, stroke and death from any cause. The researchers also adjusted the data to account for other known cardiovascular disease risk factors, such as weight, alcohol use, hormone use, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, age, diabetes and smoking history.

There are a number of things in life that can cause a person to lose weight. Many causes relate to a number of different physical health problems, such as types of terminal illness or sicknesses that are not always easily treated, or mental health problems, such as depression or stress. While the weight loss that is caused by physical health problems are easy enough to figure out and even treat, the weight loss that is due to mental health problems can be more difficult to treat because there is no physical reason for the individual to be losing weight.

People suffering from depression can often have a change in appetite that will either greatly increase their weight or more commonly cause a loss in appetite, which often causes a loss in weight. Intense anxiety, however, more often causes a significant loss of appetite in a person, which can then cause them to lose a lot of weight. Anxiety is a stress on the body, especially when a person finds that they are more anxious about life than they should be. When most people are anxious or worried, they can have a difficult time in thinking of anything else other than about what makes them feel anxious or worried. The appeal of food goes away and they can’t bring themselves to eat because they are too tense to eat. They are distracted and their health becomes something that is no longer a great concern. Being this tense and not eating proper meals, or miss eating altogether, can be quite detrimental to a person’s health. If this is allowed to go on for too long, some people will lose so much weight that they will begin to suffer other medical problems caused by the lack of proper nourishment.

There are many reasons as to why someone would become so anxious about something, much in the same way that depression can be a result of many different things; it depends on the person, their personality, what they have been through, their genetics and what their life is like. Any of these factors can easily be what is contributing to a person’s anxiety and to their loss of appetite. Anyone who is so anxious and worried that they have lost their appetite to the point where they are beginning to lose weight should seriously consider contacting a therapist. Online therapy is becoming more popular for people to use these days, especially people who worry about other people finding out that they are seeing a therapist. The online therapist can communicate with the patient and find out why the patient is so distressed that their interest in food is gone. When the issue is found, the online therapist or counselor can then work with the patient to help them get over their anxiety and worries. In many cases, the therapist is successful in helping the patient deal with what is bothering them, and the patient begins to have more of an appetite as their issues are dealt with. Jennifer Baxt, LMHC, LMFT offers online audio/video counseling as well as works with children, individuals, couples, geriatric patients, depression, bipolar, anxiety and substance abuse

There are similarities and differences between anxiety and panic attacks. An anxiety attack often comes in reaction to a stressor. You're walking down a dark alley and hear footsteps, or you're at even the top of a rollercoaster and looking to go down that large hill.
An anxiety attack, people may feel fearful, apprehensive, may feel their heart racing or feel short of breath, but it's very short lived, and when the stressor goes away, so does the anxiety attack.

Panic attack on the other hand doesn't come in reaction to a stressor. It's unprovoked and unpredictable. And during a panic attack the individual is seized with terror, fear, or apprehension. They may feel that they're going to die, or lose control or have a heart attack. They have a host of physical symptoms which may include chest pain, shortness of breath, dizziness, nausea. And in addition to these terrifying panic attacks, people start worrying about having the next one. So there's a lot of what's called anticipatory anxiety.

Also, they start avoiding places where they have a panic attack. So if they had one in a grocery store for example, they may stop going to the store. The good news is even though this is a very common disorder, it is very treatable. To find out witch panic disorder you suffer from Click Here!

The NIMH trial was the first long-term follow-up study to assess asthma and panic. Roughly 600 randomly selected residents of Zurich, Switzerland, who were 19 years old at recruitment were followed for two decades.

Having asthma was linked to a 4.5-fold increase in the risk of developing panic disorder, a condition characterized by repeated, unexplained panic attacks. And people with panic disorder were six times as likely as people without the anxiety condition to develop asthma over the 20 year follow-up period.

The asthma link was much stronger among people who had panic disorder than in those who had infrequent panic attacks. Smokers and those with a family history of allergies were also at increased risk. Smoking is known to exacerbate both asthma and panic disorder.