Joint hypermobility links with anxiety: History and present

Anxiety disorders are high prevalent disorders that include both somatic and mental dimensions. Several medical conditions have been found associated to this group, in particular digestive, cardiovascular and osteo-muscular diseases. Our group found an strong association between joint hypermobility, an heritable condition of the connective tissue (probably Ehlers Danlos type III) and several anxiety disorders like panic, agoraphobia and social phobia. Data from several cross-sectional studies show that more than sixty per cent of panic and/or agoraphobic subjects meet criteria for joint hypermobility, whereas this only happens in about 10% of controls. A recent incidence study showed that sufferers from joint hypermobility syndrome have an absolute risk for panic disorder of 44.1% versus 2.8% in nonhypermobile subjects, which corresponds to a R.R. of 22.3. In summary, the joint hypermobility syndrome, a heritable disease of the connective tissue, is a risk factor for anxiety disorders worthy of identification in the context of preventive psychiatry. © The Society of Orthopaedic Medicine and the British Institute of Musculoskeletal Medicine 2011.