|
HowToPreventHeartDisease.com |
||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
 |
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Angry Outbursts Might Lead To Higher Heart Attack Risk! While anger is believed to play a role in heart disease, not all scientists agree. Those who disagree argue that moderately expressing one’s anger can be healthy, yet many studies have suggested there is a link between the two. For instance, a paper published in 2000 in journal ‘Circulation’ found that men and women who rated high in anger were more likely to have coronary heart disease (CAD) or heart attack, though these men and women had normal blood pressure. For those angriest people, the risk of CAD and heart attack for those angriest people were about 2 and 3 times higher, compared with those with the lowest levels of anger. In a paper published online on May 2, 2013 in ‘The American Journal Of Cardiology’, researchers from Harvard Medical School in Boston in the United States reported that there is transiently higher risk of having a heart attack following an outburst of anger after analyzing data from a group of 3,886 patients who were part of a study between 1989 and 1996. Their findings found that the greater the anger, the higher the risk of getting a heart attack: the most intense outbursts were associated with a more than 4-fold higher risk and milder outburst of anger were linked to less than twice the risk.
Participants were asked about a series of events in the preceding year and about their diets, lifestyles, exercise habits and medication use, within 4 days of having a heart attack. Among a total of 1,484 participants reported having outbursts of anger in the previous year, 110 had their heart attack triggered within 2 hours after their anger outburst. Participants rated their anger on a 7-point scale ranging from irritation to a rage that caused people to lose control. It was found that with each increment of anger intensity, the risk of heart attack in the next 2 hours rose. The risk was 1.7 times greater after feeling "moderately angry, so hassled it shows in your voice", 2.3 times greater after feeling "very tense, body tense, clenching fists or teeth", and 4.5 times greater after feeling "enraged, lost control, throwing objects, hurting yourself or others". Anger might produce direct biological effects on the heart and arteries. Negative emotions, such as anger, could quickly activate the fight-or-flight response. They could also trigger the stress axis that might cause harm if repeatedly activated. In fact, excessive amounts of these stress hormones may raise blood pressure and the pulse, and speed up the process of atherosclerosis, in which fatty plaques build up in arteries. Anger may also disrupt the electrical impulses of the heart and provoke dangerous heart rhythm disturbances. On the other hand, lifestyle factors could also play a part. Angry people might take worse care of themselves. People who are chronically distressed may not behave in health-promoting ways. People who are anxious, depressed, and angry are more likely to smoke, less likely to engage in physical activity, have poor nutritional habits, and indulge in alcohol. All these might explain why anger is associated with heart attack. The researchers also pointed out that participants who were on blood pressure drugs, known as beta-blockers, had a lower risk of having a heart attack following an angry outburst. They, therefore, suggested that doctors should consider using these drugs as preventive measure for patients who are at risk of heart attack and prone to anger. Their findings could not find any difference in the link between angry outbursts and short-term heart attack risk among regular exercisers, comparing to those who were sedentary in the study. But the researchers strongly advocated that people should perform regular physical exercise, which has been shown to lower heart disease risk. This is because exercise can not only lower stress, anger, and hostility but also reduce blood pressure and raise good cholesterol.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
 |
|||||||||||||||||||||||
Copyright
2007-2012 © HowToPreventHeartDisease.com . All Rights Reserved.d........ |
||||||||||||||||||||||||
