PTSD puts women at risk of heart attack, stroke
New research has shown that the effects of Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) goes beyond the mind and put women’s hearts and brains at risk. An online report on Tuesday said: “Post-traumatic stress disorder wreaks havoc on a person’s ability to deal with small disturbances, such as a loud noise or an upsetting story in the news, and it can keep them from getting good sleep. In addition to these problems, and perhaps because of them, PTSD might also increase women’s risk of heart attack and stroke, according to new research.” Researchers looked at nearly 55,000 women in the Nurses’ Health Study II, a long-term study of young women that began in 1989. In 2008, the researchers asked the women to fill out surveys about traumatic events they had experienced in the last 20 years, including physical assault or a natural disaster as well as whether they had PTSD symptoms such as recurring thoughts about the event. The researchers found that women who were exposed to a trauma a