Excess fatigue as a precursor of myocardial infarction.

To test the hypothesis that feelings of exhaustion are predictive of future coronary heart disease, a prospective study was done among 3877 males, aged 39-65. Feelings of exhaustion were assessed by the Maastricht Questionnaire. Among those who were free of coronary heart disease at screening, 59 subjects experienced a fatal or non-fatal myocardial infarction during the 4.2 year follow-up period. A multiple logistic regression analysis revealed that feelings of exhaustion were predictive of future myocardial infarction when controlling simultaneously for blood pressure, smoking, cholesterol, age and the use of antihypertensive drugs.