Research

Hormonal

Mandatory quarantine and social isolation induce chronic stress, anxiety, and depression, which physiologically increase sympathetic nervous activity and catecholamines, thereby accelerating atherosclerosis and increasing cardiovascular disease risk.

Understand that the stress of quarantine is not just 'in your head' but has real physical effects on your heart. To mitigate this, actively manage stress through relaxation techniques, maintain social connections virtually, and prioritize sleep to counteract the sympathetic nervous system activation caused by isolation.

ModerateSupportsMEDIUM confidence
In the case of quarantine people suffered from a chronic increase of sympathetic nervous activity leading to a chronic negative effect on heart and vessels... Stress-related changes in the sympatheticeparasympathetic balance and the neuroendocrine dysregulation involving the hypothal- amusepituitarye adrenal responses might adversely affect the cardiovascular system both by accelerating the atherosclerotic process and by precipitating the occurrence of a cardiovascular event.
Anna Vittoria Mattioli et al. · Nutrition Metabolism and Cardiovascular Diseases · 2020

Why this rating

The paper is a viewpoint/commentary citing observational data and physiological mechanisms, not a randomized controlled trial.

Source

Quarantine during COVID-19 outbreak: Changes in diet and physical activity increase the risk of cardiovascular disease

Anna Vittoria Mattioli et al. · Nutrition Metabolism and Cardiovascular Diseases · 2020

DOI 10.1016/j.numecd.2020.05.020

narrative_reviewCited 547×
Read the paper
DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

This is one finding among thousands. Every one is graded and traced to its source, so you can see what the evidence actually supports. Browse the research →