Yes, and then there are also undesirable states and outcomes in which alexithymia plays a direct mechanistic role, for example somatization—people not interpreting the physical symptoms of emotional states as emotions, leading to somatosensory amplification (focusing on them and therefore amplifying them), which then leads directly to somatization (for example going to ER thinking you have a heart attack while it’s actually strong anxiety). This process also plays role in the formation or amplification of some forms of chronic pain.
Also there’s a large longitudinal Finnish study on over 2000 men. It followed them for 20 years and has shown there’s a 1.2% increase in cardiovascular disease death risk for each 1-point increase in alexithymia score. That’s adjusted for age and several behavioral (smoking, alcohol consumption, physical activity), physiological (low- and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, body mass index, systolic blood pressure, history of CVD), and psychosocial (marital status, education, depression) factors. This means that severe alexithymia alone (i.e. score 100+) is basically comparable to smoking, cardiovascular death risk-wise.
Yes, and then there are also undesirable states and outcomes in which alexithymia plays a direct mechanistic role, for example somatization—people not interpreting the physical symptoms of emotional states as emotions, leading to somatosensory amplification (focusing on them and therefore amplifying them), which then leads directly to somatization (for example going to ER thinking you have a heart attack while it’s actually strong anxiety). This process also plays role in the formation or amplification of some forms of chronic pain.
Also there’s a large longitudinal Finnish study on over 2000 men. It followed them for 20 years and has shown there’s a 1.2% increase in cardiovascular disease death risk for each 1-point increase in alexithymia score. That’s adjusted for age and several behavioral (smoking, alcohol consumption, physical activity), physiological (low- and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, body mass index, systolic blood pressure, history of CVD), and psychosocial (marital status, education, depression) factors. This means that severe alexithymia alone (i.e. score 100+) is basically comparable to smoking, cardiovascular death risk-wise.