Anger and Heart Disease
posted 04/22/02

Men who rate themselves as generally angry on questionnaires given early in life are, by the age of 55, three times more likely to have heart disease and six times more likely to have a heart attack (myocardial infarction), compared to other men. The Johns Hopkins University study appears in today's Archives of Internal Medicine.

Here is the reference:

Chang PP, Ford DE, Meoni LA, Wang NY, Klag MJ. Anger in young men and subsequent premature cardiovascular disease. Arch Intern Med 2002;162:901-6.

The article is not yet on Medline. When it is, you can visit the following Web address and search by any one of the authors' names:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi

Here is a related reference from the same study:

Ford DE, Mead LA, Chang PP, Cooper-Patrick L, Wang NY, Klag MJ. Depression is a risk factor for coronary artery disease in men: the precursors study. Arch Intern Med 1998;158:1422-6.

One common theme between anger and heart disease: Testosterone may lead to aggressiveness, and men with low levels of sex-hormone binding globulin (SHBG), which binds testosterone, tend to be rated by their wives as more domineering and difficult to get along with, compared to men with higher SHBG levels. Low-fat, vegan diets lower cholesterol levels, but also raise SHBG, helping to mute testosterone effects.

Here are the relevant references:

Gray A, Jackson DN, McKinlay JB. The relation between dominance, anger, and hormones in normally aging men: results from the Massachusetts Male Aging Study. Psychosomatic Medicine 1991;53:375-85.

Barnard ND, Scialli AR, Hurlock D, Bertron P. Diet and sex-hormone binding globulin, dysmenorrhea, and premenstrual symptoms. Obstet Gynecol 2000;95:245-50.

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