Hypertension, a Posttraumatic Stress Disorder? : Time to Widen Our Perspective

Persu, Alexandre [UCL] Petit, Géraldine [UCL] Georges, Coralie [UCL] de Timary, Philippe [UCL]

(eng) Hypertension has long been suspected of being, in some patients, a psychosomatic disorder. The impact of daily exposure to life stresses, to anger, or to anxiety on high blood pressure has been studied for decades, but these works showed inconsistent results and, as such, mostly failed to confirm the underlying hypotheses.1 Nevertheless, the role of 2 specific psychological impairments in the development of hypertension is supported by stronger evidence and, as such, deserves further investigation: the repression of the expression of affects2 and the exposure to intensely traumatic life events [...]