New research discovers a person’s physical health, including heart disease, high blood pressure, back pain and arthritis, may be influenced by anxietyand depression on a level equal to the long-established risk factors of smoking or obesity. The incidence of cancer, however, was not found to be associated with mental health risk factors.
The findings by University of California San Francisco researchers suggest the increased importance of assessing anxiety and depression during annual physical exams.
In the study, first author Andrea Niles, Ph.D., and senior author Aoife O’Donovan, Ph.D., of the UCSF Department of Psychiatry and the San Francisco VA Medical Center, looked at the health data of more than 15,000 older adults over a four-year period. They found that 16 percent (2,225) suffered from high levels of anxiety and depression, 31 percent (4,737) were obese and 14 percent (2,125) were current smokers.
[For more on this story by Rick Nauert PhD, go to https://psychcentral.com/news/...-obesity/141304.html]
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