Hypochondria began as a word for the belly below your ribs
The Greek hypokhondrios meant the soft region under the cartilage of the breastbone, and in Late Latin hypochondria simply meant the abdomen. Today the word names persistent, disabling fear of serious illness, a condition psychiatrists have reclassified so often that its current manuals no longer agree on what family it belongs to.
At its core, hypochondriasis is a conviction that minor sensations signal grave disease. A small cough becomes tuberculosis; ordinary gurgling from the intestines becomes a sign of something fatal. Reassurance from a doctor tends to be unconvincing or short-lived, and many sufferers show raised blood pressure and anxiety in clinics, a reaction called white coat syndrome. Some check obsessively with physicians and family, while others avoid any reminder of illness so completely that real problems go unnoticed. The ICD-10 requires the belief to persist for at least six months.
One study found it in about 3% of primary care visitors, and people with the condition have a life expectancy about five years shorter. It often travels with depression, panic disorder, generalized anxiety or obsessive-compulsive disorder. The overlap with OCD is striking, since both involve intrusive thoughts and compulsive checking, but the fear differs: hypochondriacs dread already having a disease, whereas people with OCD more often worry about catching or spreading one. Anxiety itself produces palpitations, dizziness and tingling, which can then be misread as further evidence.
Twin studies put heritability at roughly 10 to 37 percent. Experiences shared by twins raised together seem to contribute almost nothing, while experiences unique to each person explain most of the variation. A serious illness in childhood, a relative's death, or nearing the age at which a parent died young have all been linked to its onset.
The label keeps shifting. Early editions of the DSM called it a neurosis, the third and fourth a somatoform disorder, and the 2013 DSM-5 split it into somatic symptom disorder and illness anxiety disorder. The ICD-11 files it among obsessive-compulsive disorders, and since the early 1990s many researchers simply call it health anxiety. Around 20 randomized trials report that cognitive behavioral therapy helps about two-thirds of patients.
Source: Hypochondria
