Why YOUR heartbeat as a teenager could affect you in later life: Boys with high blood pressure are ‘at risk of mental health problems as adults’

October 26, 2016

Study tracked more than a million men from adolescence to their 60s
Found those with fast heart rate or high blood pressure at greater risk
Conditions include obsessive compulsive disorder and schizophrenia

Ben Spencer Medical Correspondent For The Daily Mail

Published:
10:00 EST, 26 October 2016

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Updated:
10:29 EST, 26 October 2016

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Teenage boys with a fast heart rate or high blood pressure may be at higher risk of developing psychiatric disorders later in life, research suggests.

A study which tracked more than one million men from adolescence until their 60s found that people who had displayed a high pulse or blood pressure when they were aged 18 were much more likely to receive a diagnosis of mental illness years later.

Teenagers who had resting heart beat above 82 beats a minute – putting them in the top fifth of pulse rates – had a 69 per cent increased risk for developing obsessive-compulsive disorder, when compared with people whose heart rate was below 62 beats a minute.

They also had a 21 per cent increased risk for schizophrenia and an 18 per cent increased risk for anxiety disorders.

Scientists found teenage boys with a fast heart rate or high blood pressure may be at higher risk of developing psychiatric disorders later in life

The researchers, from the University of Helsinki in Finland, found similar trends for people with high blood pressure.

The findings, published yesterday in the JAMA Psychiatry medical journal, were based on tests recorded among men who were conscripted to the Swedish army at the age of 18.

They were then tracked for up to 45 years.

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The scientists said much more research is needed, but if their findings are confirmed these basic medical checks could provide an early warning sign of a risk of psychiatric problems.

The authors said they had only established a statistical link – and had not established why heart rate and blood pressure might affect mental health.

But they suspect that the link might be found in the fact that the parts of the brain which control breathing and circulation are also involved in regulating emotion.

Those with a fast heart rate or high blood pressure also had a 21 per cent increased risk for schizophrenia and an 18 per cent increased risk for anxiety disorders

They wrote: ‘Importantly, the cortical and subcortical brain regions involved in autonomic processing include the amygdala, insula, and cingulate cortex, all of which play a role in emotion processing and have been linked to psychiatric morbidity.’

The team only studied men – and stressed that women may not be affected in the same way.

‘It is uncertain whether our findings are generalizable to women,’ they wrote. ‘Compared with men, women have a higher heart rate but show relatively greater parasympathetic control of the heart.

‘While these differences are poorly understood, they imply that associations between resting heart rate and psychiatric disorders may be different in men and women.’