Anger has been linked to an increased risk of heart disease. Here’s why
By Sabrina Malhi
The phrase “anger kills” might have a more literal meaning: new research suggests a possible reason frequent anger has been linked to an increased risk of cardiovascular disease. The study, published Wednesday in the Journal of the American Heart Association, emphasises the potential health risks associated with intense anger and illuminates the influence of negative emotions on our overall wellbeing.
Study findings show that anger limited the blood vessels’ ability to dilate.Credit: Getty Images
Funded by the US National Institutes of Health, the study involved 280 healthy adults who were randomly assigned to a different eight-minute task, each designed to elicit feelings of anger, anxiety, sadness or neutrality. Before and after these emotional tasks, researchers assessed the participants’ endothelial health. Endothelial cells, which line the insides of blood vessels, are essential for maintaining vessel integrity and are vital for proper circulation and cardiovascular health.
The findings revealed that anger had a significant negative impact on endothelial function, limiting the blood vessels’ ability to dilate. The response was not as pronounced with anxiety or sadness.
According to Daichi Shimbo, a cardiologist and professor of medicine at Columbia University Irving Medical Centre and the lead study author, this research marks a step toward understanding how different negative emotions particularly affect physical health.
“It’s fascinating that anxiety and sadness did not have the same effect as anger, suggesting that the ways in which negative emotions contribute to heart disease differ,” Shimbo says.
The research team chose to study healthy individuals to avoid the confounding effects of chronic illnesses, such as diabetes, which can compromise vascular function. Shimbo notes that if participants had such conditions, they already could have affected blood vessels and it would be difficult to determine the effect of emotions alone on vascular health.
Brian Choi, a cardiologist and professor of medicine and radiology at George Washington University, says findings like these could prompt healthcare providers to investigate therapies such as anger management to see if they could reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease.
“We often hear of someone suffering a heart attack during a highly distressing event. We’ve known that stress from anger can trigger a heart attack, but we didn’t understand why until this study, which elucidates the underlying mechanism,” Choi says.
Shimbo says he wants to delve further into the reasons anger detrimentally affects the heart, considering whether the cause is related to the sympathetic nervous response (the body’s alert system) or inflammation.
David Spiegel, an associate chair of psychiatry and behavioural sciences at Stanford University School of Medicine, says cases of mental illness, including depression and anxiety, have shot up in the past few years.
According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, an estimated 17 per cent of Australians have experienced an anxiety disorder in the last 12 months. The 2020–2022 National Study of Mental Health and Wellbeing estimated that 43 per cent of the population has experience mental illness at some point in their life. Both anxiety and depression can often be expressed as anger.
He adds that while anger is a normal emotion, constant feelings of anger not only have long-term impacts on an individual – they can also impact others around them.
“The concern is that when people are angry all the time, they kind of have their foot on the accelerator and the brake. … So anger has its body costs,” Spiegel says. “It’s not only the person you’re angry at who pays the price when you’re angry, your body pays the price for it.”
Common treatments for anger management typically include cognitive-behavioural therapy, relaxation techniques, stress management strategies and communication skills training.
Washington Post
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