Self-rated health and vital exhaustion, but not depression, is related to inflammation in women with coronary heart disease.

Poor subjective well-being has been associated with increased coronary heart disease (CHD) morbidity and mortality in population-based studies and with adverse outcomes in existing CHD. Little is known about the mechanisms responsible for this association, but immune activity appears to be a potential pathway. Despite the growing evidence linking immune activity to subjective feelings, very few studies have examined patients with CHD, and the results are conflicting. We examined consecutive women patients hospitalized for acute myocardial infarction, and/or underwent percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty or coronary artery bypass grafting. We assessed depression, vital exhaustion, and self-rated health by questionnaires. Circulating levels of high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hsCRP), interleukin-6 (IL-6), and interleukin-1 receptor antagonist (IL-1ra) concentrations were determined. After controlling for potential confounding factors there was a significant positive correlation between IL-6 levels and vital exhaustion and poor self-rated health. The association between hsCRP and vital exhaustion and self-rated health was borderline significant. In contrast, the correlations between psychological factors and IL-1ra levels were weak and non-significant, as were the correlations between inflammatory markers and depression. Similar relationships between the inflammatory markers and the measures of psychological well-being were obtained when the latter ones were categorized into tertiles. In conclusion, inflammatory activity, assessed by IL-6 and hsCRP levels, was associated with vital exhaustion and self-rated health in CHD women. These findings may provide further evidence for a possible psychoneuroimmune link between subjective well-being and CHD. Our observations also raise the possibility that a cytokine-induced sickness response in CHD may be better represented by constructs of vital exhaustion and self-rated health than of depression.