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The aim of this study was to examine whether panic attacks are associated with cardiovascular disease in postmenopausal women. Subjects were 3369 community-dwelling, generally healthy postmenopausal women (age range, 51–83 years), enrolled in the Myocardial Ischemia and Migraine Study (MIMS), who completed a questionnaire about panic attack occurrence in the previous 6 months. Full-blown panic attack was defined as an attack of sudden fear, anxiety, or extreme discomfort accompanied by 4 or more panic-attack symptoms from a 12-symptom checklist. Cardiovascular and cerebrovascular endpoints were ascertained from medical records.
The 6-month incidence of full-blown panic attacks was a surprisingly high 10%. During a mean 5.3 years of follow-up…