Men’s Anger and Heart Disease
Monday, February 25, 2008

Do you fume or frequently lose your cool? Learning to soothe your chronic anger may help your heart. Dr. Ken Davis explains in today’s 60 Second Housecall.

The Annals of Family Medicine reports that having a short fuse may shorten the path to heart disease in men with pre-hypertension. Researchers studied 2,300 Americans, aged 48 to 67, for four to eight years.

Men with borderline high blood pressure and chronic anger were more likely to develop high blood pressure and heart disease. The same wasn’t true of women, perhaps because fewer women developed heart disease during the study.

For men and women alike, long-term psychological stress was linked to high blood pressure and heart disease.

The results didn’t change when the researchers factored in participants’ age, sex, race, smoking and cholesterol status. This data supports other studies that demonstrate stress and chronic anger may be related to the development of high blood pressure and heart disease. Recognizing and dealing with stress and anger not only improves your life, it may benefit your heart.

 For North Mississippi Medical Center, I’m Dr. Ken Davis.