Due to globalization, economic structure has changed and is very different from years ago. Royalty towards organizations are rare and likewise, security of jobs provided by organizations is scarce too. More and more people choose to become entrepreneurs or self-employed. Under such circumstances, people are constantly under stress irrespective of which categories they are in.



Do take note that a stressful life does seem to raise the odds of heart disease and stroke, according to a large study from Sweden. Among more than 13,600 men and women followed since middle age, those who reported chronic stress at the study's outset faced a somewhat higher risk of fatal or non-fatal heart disease or stroke over the years.

Interestingly, strong link was found only among men. The link between stress and cardiovascular ills was found to be weak in women.

It is thought that constant stress may affect the conditions of arteries in a number of direct or indirect ways, from causing chronically high levels of stress hormones to pushing people to maintain unhealthy habits such as smoking.

Throughout the study between 1974 and 1980, middle-age men and women were questioned about their stress levels over the previous 1 to 5 years. They were then followed through 1999 to see who developed cardiovascular disease.

The researchers found that participants who reported chronic stress at the study's start were 14 percent more likely to develop heart-related problems or suffer a stroke, regardless of other factors like family history, body weight, smoking and high blood pressure.

Though the reason remained unknown, it was men's risk of fatal stroke that showed the clearest relationship to stress: stress-out men were twice as likely as their peers to die of a stroke. Weaker findings among women were likely due to the fairly low number of heart disease and stroke cases among women.

If we wish to keep ourselves healthy in today's stressful environment, perhaps we must seek ways to help manage the stress we have. My previous article: ?10 Tips To Drive Away Stress!? highlighted some means to reduce stress. If you are interested to have a copy of it, do drop me an email.

Meanwhile, if you are not sure what is your stress level and whether it can harm to your heart, you can always take some tests to measure the correlation between them. In my next article on stress, I will briefly introduce two tests that can help in this respect.

Former Heart Surgeon Reveals ... How to prevent and even reverse heart disease - without drugs or surgery. Read more about Dr Robert's confession at: http://www.howtopreventheartdisease.com/dr-robert.html