Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety, and depression—strongly associated with essential tremor (ET)—are known risk factors for poor health habits, tobacco use, and alcohol abuse, according to a recent study. Collectively, these are risk factors for vascular disease, with further negative health consequences for multiple organ systems. Furthermore, as ET is associated with all these conditions, researchers suggest that chronic stress is not only responsible for the conditions associated with tremor but in some cases itself directly and indirectly induces ET, so that tremor and poor health share a common cause. The FY2013 Veterans Affairs database was queried for 38 selected dual diagnosis combinations in 5,854,223 veterans aged 21–95 years. Researchers found:

• PTSD, anxiety, and depression were the most common psychiatric diagnoses in tremor patients, with the odds ratio exceeding 2 in all 15-year cohorts.
• Depending on age, patients with ET were more likely than those without to have obsessive-compulsive disorder, bipolar illness, schizophrenia, use tobacco and abuse alcohol, have hypertension, obesity, hyperlipidemia, diabetes, and a host of other health conditions.