People who are considered ‘mentally vulnerable' have an increased risk of developing heart disease, a new study has found.

According to Danish scientists, mental vulnerability refers to people who have ‘a tendency to experience psychosomatic symptoms or inadequate interpersonal reactions'.

Psychosomatic refers to cases where mental factors cause physical symptoms, but there is no physical disease. For example, a person may suffer with chest pain as a result of stress.

The study involved almost 11,000 people who were followed up for an average period of almost 16 years. At the start of the study, none of the participants had heart disease and all were assessed for mental vulnerability. Based on this, they were divided into three groups - non-vulnerable, latent and mentally vulnerable.

During the follow-up period, over 3,000 fatal and non-fatal heart events occurred. The scientists found that those who were mentally vulnerable were significantly more at risk of suffering a fatal or non-fatal heart event. In fact, this risk was 36% higher when compared with the non-vulnerable group.

These results stood even when other heart risk factors were taken into account, such as age, smoking and blood pressure.

The scientists said that these findings ‘might improve risk prediction or even emerge as a new marker to explain or reclassify some cardiovascular cases which cannot be attributed to classical risk factors'.

They added that the reason for these findings may be down to the chronic psychological stress experienced by people who are mentally vulnerable. However, they also suggested that removing the triggers of such stress may reduce the risk of subsequent heart disease.

Details of these findings were presented at the European Society of Cardiology's EuroPRevent 2013 Congress in Rome.

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