I'm worried about the effect years of severe anxiety has had on my body, should i be?

Yes: Severe anxiety can cause stress hormones to be released in your body for an extended period of time. This can be very harmful to your body, causing hypertension or other problems. Chronic stress can cause a condition called adrenal fatigue. If you have severe anxiety you should see your primary care physician, as there are treatments for both anxiety and it's side effects on your body.

Not necessarily: At onset of anxiety / panic, short-term symptoms (chest pain, shortness of breath, palpitations, sweating) occur: best thought of as the body 's preparation for "fight or flight" -- same as other animals' reaction to fear -- not a long term health problem. Learning personal anxiety-triggers reduces frequency and severity of symptoms. Tranquilizers calm symptoms, but don't break the cycle.

Anxiety Talking: The most important thing to be worried about is incorporating healthy ways of reducing and eliminating stress from your life. Worrying about the worry is just feeding in to your cycle. Whether long-term stress will affect you - or not - does not change the fact that you (all of us) must do all we can to properly deal with stress.