Symptoms of PTSD can come in the form of nightmares, flashbacks, difficulty sleeping, and feelings of detachment. Since PTSD is most commonly associated with soldiers returning from war, it’s often overlooked that women experience PTSD twice as much as men.
PTSD may raise odds of heart attack, stroke in women
What they uncovered through analysis of data was that women who showed four or more symptoms of PTSD were 60 percent more likely to have cardiovascular disease. This was in comparison to women who never experienced a traumatic event. Women with no symptoms of PTSD, but who reported experiencing traumatic events, also had a greater risk of cardiovascular disease.
Researchers tied the risk of cardiovascular disease in women with symptoms of PTSD to the fact these women took part in unhealthy behaviors. This includes having high blood pressure, smoking and minimal physical activity.
Researchers feel that through their research it reveals that there is a clear link between mind and body. They propose doctors begin to treat the mind and body as one and not separate.
Why do women have a higher risk of PTSD?
In a review of 290 studies spanning 25 years of research, officials at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Medicine, found that men experience trauma in the form of witnessing death, experiencing accidents and nonsexual assaults. But women experience higher rates of sexual assaults. The researchers said PTSD is a result from sexual assault, and the emotional damage wrought on women.
Researchers then analyzed the data further and removed sexual assault as a factor. They still found women were more likely to develop PTSD. Researchers concluded that women get diagnosed more often based on the criteria of diagnosis – emotional and cognitive responses to trauma. While the rate of men who suffer from PTSD is lower due to how they react to emotional trauma.
It’s important we recognize how to treat the mind and body as one, just as the researchers suggest. PTSD can have lasting effects, especially with the research linking it to cardiovascular disease. By becoming more aware of this mental health disorder we can make better forms of treatment and help PTSD sufferers recover.
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Post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD): Take back control
Stress is one thing most of us face in our hectic lives. But post-traumatic stress disorder (PSTD) is a disease of intense mental anguish from the kind of life or death trauma faced by soldiers in combat, a car crash, serious injury, sudden death of a loved one, or sexual violence. Continue reading…
The surprising thing that increases your risk of heart attack
Age, smoking, obesity, family history, blood pressure, cholesterol and lack of exercise are all known risk factors of having a heart attack. Therefore, we all get our vitals checked at the doctors, try to eat well and occasionally go for an outdoorsy walk when the weather is nice. But there is one factor that you may not have any control over and if you experience it, you increase your risk of a heart attack by 65 percent. Continue reading…
Sources:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/06/150629175956.htm
http://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2006/11/ptsd-rates.aspx
http://www.ptsd.ne.gov/what-is-ptsd.html
http://www.adaa.org/understanding-anxiety/posttraumatic-stress-disorder-ptsd