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Anxiety or depression disorders can increase the risk of blood clots by almost 50 percent, according to a new study. Brain imaging studies show that increased brain activity associated with stress, as well as inflammation caused by mental illness, increases the risk of deep vein thrombosis, which is the formation of blood clots in the deep veins. Researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital in the US analyzed a dataset of more than 1.1 million participants to understand the relationship between anxiety and depression and the risk of deep vein thrombosis. A smaller group of 1,520 people underwent brain imaging. During the more than three-year follow-up period, 1,781 participants (1.5 percent) were diagnosed with a bleeding disorder. The researchers found that an anxiety or depressive disorder has a 50 percent risk of developing deep vein thrombosis, and both mental illnesses have a 70 percent risk of developing coagulopathy.

"Conclusions: Identify anxiety disorders and depression as potential risk factors for deep vein thrombosis and identify modifiable mechanisms mediating this association," the authors wrote in a study published in the American Journal of Hematology. Participants were 58 years old on average, and 57 percent were women. 44 percent of the entire group had cancer. However, adjusting for cancer as a risk factor for depression and venous thrombosis did not change the results, the authors said.