A study found people were more likely to gain excessive weight -- at least 5 percent of their body weight -- if they record a high score when measuring vital exhaustion, Canwest News Service reported Friday.

Vital exhaustion, characterized by fatigue, irritability and feelings of demoralization, has been found to dramatically increase the risk of heart attacks, the news service said.

Mental stress and heart disease have been associated with obesity and researchers said they wanted to know whether vital exhaustion linked as well.

"In other words, you have those feelings, those feelings lead to weight gain and that weight gain leads to cardiac events," says co-author June Stevens, Nutrition Department chairwoman in the School of Public Health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

The study, published in Obesity, studied 13,727 white and African-American men and women, age 45 to 64. Researchers found white women who scored high on vital exhaustion were 34 percent more likely to gain excess weight during the course of the study.

Understanding the link could lead to better targeted treatments to reduce vital exhaustion, prevent further weight gain and improve weight-loss therapies, researchers said.