While the idea may appear paradoxical or ironic, a new study reveals that excessive fear of being seriously ill is actually linked to early death.
Death Risk and Illness Anxiety Disorder
A massive Swedish study, entitled "All-Cause and Cause-Specific Mortality Among Individuals With Hypochondriasis," was able to reveal a paradox among those with illness anxiety disorder, which is a rare condition pertaining to excessive fear of serious illnesses that go beyond the average health worries. According to the study, individuals dealing with these conditions tend to die earlier. This is compared to those who are not hypervigilant pertaining to health.
The researchers observed that individuals with the diagnosis had a higher risk of death due to both natural and unnatural reasons, especially suicide. The authors note that long-term stress and its effects on the body could account for some differences.
Research leader David Mataix-Cols from the Karolinska Institute in Sweden explains that the study caters to an obvious literature gap. He adds that they got lucky as the Swedish classification system for diseases has a different hypochondriasis code. This allows for data analysis on thousands of individuals from 1997 to 2020.
Mataix-Cols adds that previous research suggests that suicide risk is lower for those with illness anxiety disorder. However, their guess, which is based on their clinical experience, is that this is not the case.
The researchers looked into 4,100 individuals with a diagnosis of illness anxiety disorder, which is previously known as hypochondriasis, and matched them with 41,000 other individuals with similar sex, age, and resident country.
The study discovered that suicide death risk was four times higher for those with illness anxiety disorder. General death rates were also observed to be higher among individuals with hypochondriasis.
People with illness anxiety disorder also had an earlier death compared to others, with a mean of 70 compared to 75. They also had a higher death risk from respiratory and circulatory diseases.
Cancer was observed to be an exception, with death risk being the same for the two groups.
With this, it is crucial to refer individauls exhibiting excessive fear of getting ill to a mental health professional.
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Illness Anxiety Disorder Explained
Illness anxiety disorder, or hypochondriasis, is a chronic mental health condition that involves a pressing fear of having a serious or life-threatening illness. This comes with only a few or no symptoms at all.
Individuals dealing with this condition could misinterpret the usual function of the body as illness signs. Even when medical tests do not show any problems, individuals with this condition still think that they are seriously ill. Their pressing worries about their health can affect their careers, relationships, and overall lives.
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