FRIDAY, Dec. 19, 2025 (HealthDay News) — Depression and anxiety are linked to an increased risk of heart attack, heart disease and stroke, and researchers now think they know why.
These mood disorders appear to drive brain activity and nervous system responses that place additional stress on the heart, the researchers reported Dec. 17 in the journal Circulation: Cardiocular Imaging.
“These results give us a clearer biological picture of how emotional stress ‘gets under the skin’ and impacts cardiovascular health,” said lead researcher Dr. Shady Abohashem, director of PET/CT cardiac imaging studies at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.
“For physicians, it is a reminder to consider mental health as an integral part of cardiovascular risk assessment,” he said in a press release. “It is encouraging for patients to know that addressing chronic stress, anxiety or depression is a priority not only for mental health, but also for heart health.”
For the study, researchers analyzed data from more than 85,500 people participating in a large research project currently underway at Mass General Brigham.
According to the researchers, nearly 15,000 of the people suffered from both depression and anxiety, and more than 15,800 had one or the other. The remainder had neither condition.
The participants were followed for just over three years, during which more than 3,000 suffered a heart attack, heart failure or stroke.
“Consistent with previous reports, we found that both depression and anxiety are associated with an increased risk of heart attack or stroke,” said lead researcher Dr. Ahmed Tawakol in a press release. He is director of nuclear cardiology at Universal Brigham Cardiology and Vascular Institute.
“Notably, people diagnosed with both depression and anxiety were at approximately 32% increased risk compared to those diagnosed with only one condition,” Tawakol continued. “Importantly, these associations remained strong even after accounting for differences in lifestyle behaviors, socioeconomic factors, and traditional risk factors such as smoking, diabetes, and high blood pressure.”
Analysis of brain imaging data showed that people with depression or anxiety had greater activity in their amygdala, a brain region associated with stress, according to the researchers.
These people also had higher levels of CRP, a protein linked to inflammation.
“Taken together, these changes appear to form a biological chain linking emotional stress to cardiovascular risk,” Abohashem said. “When the brain’s stress circuits are overactive, they can chronically trigger the body’s “fight-or-flight” system, leading to increased heart rate, blood pressure, and chronic inflammation. Over time, these changes can damage blood vessels and accelerate heart disease.”
This, he said, “reinforces that protecting heart health is not just about diet or exercise, but also about emotional health.”
Because the study was based on observational data, it could not demonstrate a cause-and-effect relationship between mood disorders and heart problems, the researchers noted.
More research is needed to find out whether mood disorders cause or are simply related to heart disease.
Researchers are now studying whether stress-reducing therapies or lifestyle changes can reduce heart risk in people with mood disorders.
More information
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more information about heart disease and mental health.
SOURCE: Mass General Brigham, press release, December 17, 2025
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