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Highly anxious and emotionally upset individuals are often warned to calm down lest they suffer a stroke. To put this popular notion to the test, investigators conducted a long-term, prospective study of 6913 participants in the First National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey and Follow-up Studies. Individuals were examined at ages 25 to 74 in 1971–1975 and followed for a mean of 16.3 years. Information about 419 subsequent incident strokes that occurred in participants was derived from hospital and nursing-home records, death certificates, and interviews.
After adjustments for age, ethnicity, sex, education, marital status, blood-pressure medication use, diabetes, physical activity, alcohol use, cigarette smoking, blood pressure, bod…