Psychosomatic Heart Disease: Role of Sympathetic and Sympathoadrenal Processes

Until recently, it was thought that no more than 50% of clinical coronary heart disease was explicable in terms of classical cardiac risk factors such as high blood pressure, dyslipidemia, cigarette smoking, and diabetes. Recent large-scale epidemiological studies have provided evidence that psychological factors, particularly depressive illness, anxiety states, and acute and chronic mental stress are involved, triggering clinical cardiovascular events and possibly also contributing to hypertension and atherosclerosis development.