Healthy middle-aged women with feelings of hopelessness appear to experience thickening of the neck arteries, which can be a precursor to stroke, according to new research out of the University of Minnesota Medical School.
The study, published online today in Stroke: Journal of the American Heart Association, found that hopelessness - negative thinking and feelings of uselessness - affects arteries independent of clinical depression and before women develop clinically relevant cardiovascular disease.
Researchers looked at 559 women (average age 50, 62 percent white, 38 percent African American) who were generally healthy and did not show signs of clinical cardiovascular disease.
They measured hopelessness with a two-item questionnaire assessing expectancies regarding future and personal goals. Depressive symptoms were measured with a 20-item Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale. Thickness of neck arteries was assessed using ultrasound.
The study found a consistent, progressive, and linear association between increasing neck artery thickness and rising levels of hopelessness. The overall difference in arterial thickening between women with higher versus lower hopelessness scores, about .02 millimeters (mm), was equal to about one year of thickening. Those with the highest hopelessness scores had an average .06 mm greater thickening than those in the lowest group - a clinically significant difference. This correlation remained after adjusting for any influence of age, race, income, cardiovascular risk factors, and depression.