Q: In this task, you are given a text of many news articles seperated by special token "|||||". Your task is to summarize them.
LONDON (Reuters) - People with heightened activity in the amygdala, an area of the brain linked to stress, may be at greater risk of heart disease and stroke, scientists said on Thursday in research that could lead to new ways to treat stress-related heart problems. 
  
 Scans a brain, bone and artery used in a study carried out by Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School which associates the brain region called the amygdala, an area linked to stress, to greater risk of heart disease and stroke are seen in an undated image released January 11, 2017 by The Lancet which published the reasearch. The Lancet Handout via REUTERS 
  
 Publishing their work in The Lancet medical journal, the researchers said the stress signaled in the amygdala is also linked to increased bone marrow activity and to inflammation in the arteries, which can cause heart attack and stroke. 
  
 Exploring the links, the scientists said a plausible biological mechanism could be that the amygdala triggers the bone marrow to produce extra white blood cells, which then cause the arteries to develop plaques and become inflamed. 
  
 “Our results provide a unique insight into how stress may lead to cardiovascular disease,” said Ahmed Tawakol of Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School in the United States, who led the study. 
  
 “This raises the possibility that reducing stress could produce benefits that extend beyond an improved sense of psychological wellbeing.” 
  
 Smoking, high blood pressure and diabetes are well- established risk factors for heart disease, and anecdotal evidence has pointed to chronic stress as another possible risk. 
  
 Studies in animals have previously found a link between stress and higher activity in bone marrow and arteries, but until now scientists were unsure if this was the case in people. 
  
 Other research has found the amygdala is more active in people with post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety and depression. But before this study, none had found the region of the brain that links stress to heart attack and stroke risk. 
  
 In this research, scientists gave 293 patients brain and body scans to record their brain, bone marrow and spleen activity and inflammation of their arteries. 
  
 The patients were then tracked for an average of 3.7 years to see if they developed heart disease. In this time 22 patients had cardiovascular events - including heart attack, angina, heart failure, stroke and peripheral arterial disease. 
  
 The researchers found that those with higher amygdala activity were more likely to have subsequent cardiovascular disease, and more likely to develop problems sooner than those with lower activity. 
  
 Emily Reeve, a cardiac nurse at the British Heart Foundation charity, said the study’s findings should lead to better understanding of how to prevent heart disease. 
  
 “The link between stress and increased risk of developing heart disease has previously focused on the lifestyle habits people take up when they feel stressed such as smoking, drinking...and overeating,” she said. 
  
 “Exploring the brain’s management of stress and discovering why it increases the risk of heart disease will allow us to develop new ways of managing chronic psychological stress.” ||||| Image copyright Science Photo Library Image caption Researchers say they have identified how stress can lead to inflamed arteries 
  
 The effect of constant stress on a deep-lying region of the brain explains the increased risk of heart attack, a study in The Lancet suggests. 
  
 In a study of 300 people, those with higher activity in the amygdala were more likely to develop cardiovascular disease - and sooner than others. 
  
 Stress could be as important a risk factor as smoking and high blood pressure, the US researchers said. 
  
 Heart experts said at-risk patients should be helped to manage stress. 
  
 Emotional stress has long been linked with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD), which affects the heart and blood vessels - but the way this happens has not been properly understood. 
  
 This study, led by a team from Harvard Medical School, points to heightened activity in the amygdala - an area of the brain that processes emotions such as fear and anger - as helping to explain the link. 
  
 The researchers suggest that the amygdala signals to the bone marrow to produce extra white blood cells, which in turn act on the arteries causing them to become inflamed. This can then cause heart attacks, angina and strokes. 
  
 As a result, when stressed, this part of the brain appears to be a good predictor of cardiovascular events. 
  
 But they also said more research was needed to confirm this chain of events. 
  
 Inflammation insight 
  
 The Lancet research looked at two different studies. The first scanned the brain, bone marrow, spleen and arteries of 293 patients, who were tracked for nearly four years to see if they developed CVD. In this time, 22 patients did, and they were the ones with higher activity in the amygdala. 
  
 The second very small study, of 13 patients, looked at the relationship between stress levels and inflammation in the body. 
  
 It found that those who reported the highest levels of stress had the highest levels of amygdala activity and more evidence of inflammation in their blood and arteries. 
  
 Dr Ahmed Tawakol, lead author and associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, said: "Our results provide a unique insight into how stress may lead to cardiovascular disease. 
  
 "This raises the possibility that reducing stress could produce benefits that extend beyond an improved sense of psychological wellbeing. 
  
 Image copyright Science Photo Library Image caption The amygdala is one of the most primitive parts of the brain linked to strong emotions, such as fear and anger. 
  
 What does the amygdala do? 
  
 It's the part of the brain that prepares you for fight or flight, becoming activated by strong emotional reactions. 
  
 The amygdalae (because there are two of them - one on each side of the brain) are almond-shaped groups of cells located deep within the medial temporal lobes of the brain. 
  
 In humans and animals, the amygdala is linked to responses to both fear and pleasure. 
  
 The term amygdala - which means almond in Latin - was first used in 1819. 
  
 Dr Tawakol added: "Eventually, chronic stress could be treated as an important risk factor for cardiovascular disease, which is routinely screened for and effectively managed like other major cardiovascular disease risk factors." 
  
 Commenting on the research, Dr Ilze Bot, from Leiden University in the Netherlands, said more and more people were experiencing stress on a daily basis. 
  
 "Heavy workloads, job insecurity or living in poverty are circumstances that can result in chronically increased stress, which in turn can lead to chronic psychological disorders such as depression." 
  
 Emily Reeve, senior cardiac nurse at the British Heart Foundation, said reducing the risk of heart disease and stroke from stress normally focused on controlling lifestyle habits such as smoking, drinking too much alcohol and overeating - but this should change. 
  
 "Exploring the brain's management of stress and discovering why it increases the risk of heart disease will allow us to develop new ways of managing chronic psychological stress. 
  
 "This could lead to ensuring that patients who are at risk are routinely screened and that their stress is managed effectively." ||||| The mind-body connection is more than just a catchphrase: A new study finds that increased levels of stress are indeed linked to greater risk of a heart attack or stroke. 
  
 Researchers found that the people in the study who had more activity in an area of the brain that regulates the body's response to stress and fear, called the amygdala, were more likely to have a heart attack or stroke than those with less activity in the amygdala, according to the study. 
  
 "This study identifies, for the first time in animal models or humans, the region of the brain that links stress to the risk of heart attack or stroke," lead study author Dr. Ahmed Tawakol, a cardiologist at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, said in a statement. [Heart of the Matter: 7 Things to Know About Your Ticker] 
  
 In addition, the researchers also linked increased activity in the amygdala to several processes that play a role in the development of heart disease, according to the study, published today (Jan. 11) in the journal The Lancet. 
  
 "While the link between stress and heart disease has long been established, the mechanism mediating that risk has not been clearly understood," Tawakol said. 
  
 In the study, the researchers looked at two groups of patients, the first of which included nearly 300 adults ages 30 and up. At the start of the study, none of the patients had heart disease. The researchers performed brain scans on the patients using a technique that not only measured brain activity levels but also allowed the researchers to look at levels of blood vessel inflammation and bone marrow activity throughout the body. 
  
 During the average follow-up period of 3.7 years, 22 of the patients had a medical event related to heart disease, such as a heart attack, stroke or diagnosis of heart failure. The researchers found that increased activity levels in the amygdala at the beginning of the study were linked to a significantly higher risk of having a cardiovascular event later on. 
  
 And the higher the levels of activity were in the amygdala at the study's start, the sooner these events occurred, the researchers found. 
  
 In addition, heightened activity in the amygdala was associated with greater amounts of inflammation in the blood vessels and higher levels of activity in the parts of the bone marrow where new blood cells are made, according to the study. 
  
 Both inflammation in the blood vessels and increased bone marrow activity can contribute to a condition called atherosclerosis, which increases a person's risk for heart disease, according to the study. In animal studies, researchers have found that stress activates the bone marrow, prompting it to produce white blood cells, which leads to inflammation, Tawakol said. "This study suggests an analogous path exists in humans," he added. 
  
 The second, smaller group of patients in the study included 13 people with chronic stress disorders, such as post-traumatic stress disorder. These patients were asked to complete a questionnaire about their perceived stress levels, as well as undergo brain scans to measure the levels of activity in their amygdalae. The researchers also measured the patients' blood vessel inflammation levels. 
  
 They found that the patients' perceived stress levels were linked to increased activity in the amygdala as well as increased levels of inflammation in the blood vessels. 
  
 The new study "provides more evidence of a heart-brain connection" by elucidating a link between activity in the amygdala, which is a marker of stress, and subsequent cardiovascular events, Zahi Fayad, a senior author of the study and the director of the Translational and Molecular Imaging Institute at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City, said in a statement. 
  
 The link between amygdala activity and risk of heart attack or stroke held up even after the researchers controlled for risk factors for heart disease, Fayad added. 
  
 Although more studies are needed to look into the effects of stress reduction on heart disease risk, Tawakol noted that the "findings suggest several potential opportunities to reduce cardiovascular risk attributable to stress." 
  
 For example, "it would be reasonable to advise" people with an increased risk of heart disease to try stress-reduction techniques if they feel they have a lot of stress, he said. [11 Tips to Lower Stress] 
  
 Additionally, drugmakers may be able to target some of the mechanisms highlighted in the study to develop new drugs to treat heart disease, Tawakol said. 
  
 Originally published on Live Science. |||||
A:
Scientists have long cautioned that stress is bad for the heart, and a new study provides insight into precisely why. In the Lancet, researchers lay out a chain of events: When people feel stress, the amygdala area of the brain—it processes emotions such as fear and danger—fires up with extra activity to help them cope. The problem is that the amygdala sends a signal to bone marrow to generate more white blood cells, and those blood cells in turn cause arteries to become inflamed, explains the BBC. That inflammation can then result in heart attacks and strokes. Researchers based their findings on two studies, the larger of which tracked nearly 300 people for about four years. The pattern seemed clear: Those with higher amygdala activity were more likely to develop heart disease of some kind. "While the link between stress and heart disease has long been established, the mechanism mediating that risk has not been clearly understood," says study leader Ahmed Tawakol of Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, per Live Science. A link between stress and higher activity in bone marrow and arteries had previously only been recorded in animals, but the new research suggests it applies to humans as well, reports Reuters. The takeaway: "Reducing stress could produce benefits that extend beyond an improved sense of psychological wellbeing," says Tawakol. Those at increased risk of heart disease should look into stress-reduction techniques, he adds. (Almost half of all heart attacks are silent.)