Alexithymia Is Associated with Delayed Treatment Seeking in Acute Myocardial Infarction

Takotsubo Syndrome is Associated with Mood Disorders and Antidepressants Use, not with Anxiety and Impairment of Quality of Life Due to the Psychiatric Disorder

“…Anxiety and depression are often associated, especially in cardio-circulatory disorders [25-28]. However, in the broad spectrum of mood and anxiety disorders, there are different disorders requiring even different treatments.…”

Alexithymia in the medically ill. Analysis of 1190 patients in gastroenterology, cardiology, oncology and dermatology

“…Postmyocardial infarction (MI) patients developed high levels of alexithymia within 3 to 6 months after discharge [53]. Since patients with a previous MI or established coronary heart disease were found consistently to take longer to respond to their symptoms than patients with a first MI, it might be speculated that the greater delay time may be due to secondary alexithymia, resulting from previous cardiac events, leading many of these patients to use emotion-focused coping for dealing with the threat of renewed symptoms rather than taking more immediate action to seek care [54]. In a survey on general population, alexithymia was independently predicted by higher levels of C-reactive protein (CRP), even after controlling for age, sex, lifestyle (body mass index, smoking, alcohol), comorbidity for chronic diseases, and use of anti-inflammatory medications [55].…”

Commentary on “Autism, oxytocin and interoception”: Alexithymia, not Autism Spectrum Disorders, is the consequence of interoceptive failure

“…An interesting outstanding question related to these speculations is the extent to which alexithymia represents a specific deficit of interoception in the affective domain or whether multiple interoceptive domains are affected. We have been interested in this question for some time and preliminary data from our lab, as well as findings of decreased heart rate awareness (Herbert et al, 2011), longer delays to seek treatment after heart problems (Carta et al, 2013;Kenyon et al, 1991), erratic caffeine use (Lyvers et al, 2014), and an association with diabetes (Abramson et al, 1991), lead us to suggest that alexithymia may best be considered a general disorder of interoception.…”