Insecure people have a greater risk of suffering from physical problems

Jul 24, 2010 08:11 GMT  ·  By

People who fear rejection or are insecure about their relationships, have a bigger risk for several health problems like high blood pressure, stroke or even heart attack, a new study revealed. Researchers from Acadia University in Nova Scotia, Canada, focused on relationship uncertainties, also called “insecure attachment”.

The research studied secure, avoidant and anxious attachment. Secure attachment is experienced by people who feel comfortable with others, who are not afraid of depending on them and like getting close. People who do not trust others, who doubt them and don't like being too close have an avoidant attachment. Finally, those who want to get close to others but fear rejection experience anxious attachment.

Scientists analyzed attachment-type results from 5,645 adults aged 18 to 60 years. Patients reported their history of health problems like arthritis, chronic pain, severe headaches, stroke and heart attack whether or not they had been diagnosed with heart disease, high blood pressure, chronic lung disease, diabetes asthma, ulcers, epilepsy, high blood sugar, seizures or cancer. Psychiatric disorders such as depression were also considered.

The study's results somehow surprised researchers as they did not expect to find a link between relationship attachment and cardiovascular problems, much of the early work being focused on effects on health conditions involving pain. It “ suggests that attachment is associated with these fairly concrete and negative health outcomes,” according to study researcher Lachlan McWilliams of Acadia University, and whereas pain can be perceived as more or less intense, heart attack is a striking sharp event.

“A growing body of research that suggest that negative experiences in childhood have a wide range of negative outcomes in terms of mental health and [physical] health later in life,” scientists explained to LiveScience. “If parents are fairly unresponsive, don't pay much attention to their kids, their child may develop avoidant attachment - learn to depend on themselves rather than others," McWilliams said. "Parents who are inconsistent, sometimes supportive and sometimes not as helpful, that tends to lead to the more anxious style of attachment.”

The study also linked avoidant attachment to pain-related health problems, like headaches or arthritis and anxious attachment to pain and cardiovascular problems, that included heart attack and stroke. Only secure attachment had no connection to any kind of health issue.

Researchers have not found the reason for these links between health problems and relationship behavior but advanced a few hypothesis.

McWilliams said that attachment influences the way people manage stress. Those that have insecure attachment might have a tendency of abusing alcohol and cigarettes, which increases the risk of health problems. Insecure people might also not trust their doctor. “That could involve not going to a doctor when you need one, not paying attention to what the doctor tells you to do in terms of taking medication, or changing one's lifestyle,” McWilliams added.

Still, more work needs to be done to establish the causes of this link.