Mental distress is suspected as an underlying and often underrecognized cause of physical complaint.  Dominique Hange, from the University of Gothenburg (Sweden), and colleagues assessed data collected on 1,500 middle-aged women enrolled in the Population Study of Women in Gothenburg.   The data revealed that one in five middle-aged women had experienced constant or frequent stress during the last five years.  Further, in four out of ten cases, long-term stress suffered by women leads to some form of physical complaint.  Among those women who reported stress, 40% had psychosomatic symptoms in the form of aches and pain in their muscles and joints, 28% suffered from headaches or migraines, and the same proportion reported gastrointestinal complaints. However, there was no association between perceived mental stress at baseline and mortality over 37 years of follow-up.