Anger could be fatal for heart
POSTED February 24, 2009 - 15:59 | POSTED BY Neelam Goswami
Last edited by Shikha Patial on February 24, 2009 - 15:59
Los Angeles, February 24:Anger and other strong emotions could really put an individual at an increased risk of having life-threatening irregular heartbeat, warns a new study by U.S. researchers.
The connection between negative emotions like hostility, shock and depressiondefine and risks for developing heart disease is already established. Some other studies have shown that emotional disturbance from disasters like earthquakes and the likes of 9/11 attacks increases the rates of sudden cardiacdefine death.
Now, new research goes a step further, saying even anger can affect heart function in people with vulnerable hearts.
"It's definitely been shown in all different ways that when you put a whole population under a stressor that sudden death will increase," said Dr. Rachel Lampert of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, who is the lead author of the study.
"Our study starts to look at how does this really affect the electrical system of the heart," she said adding that in already vulnerable people, "anger causes electrical changes in the heart."
Dr. Lampert and colleagues reached their discovery after studying 62 heart-disease patients who had implantable cardioverter defibrillatordefine (ICD), a device that can detect life-threatening heart rhythms or arrhythmias and delivers a jolt of electricity to the heart to correct the abnormal heart beat.
About three months after ICD implantation, each study participant underwent a mental stress test, during which they were asked to think of a time when they felt angry or aggravated.
During the stress test, Dr. Lampert and colleagues analyzed T-wave alternans(TWA), a measure of the electrical stability of the heart.
The researchers then followed the participants for 37 months to determine which patients later had a cardiac arrestdefine and needed a shock from their implantable cardioverter-defibrillators.
"The people who had the highest anger-induced electrical instability were 10 times more likely than everyone else to have an arrhythmia in follow-up," said Dr. Lampert adding that the findings suggest that anger can be deadly for heart patients, especially for those who are already vulnerable to this type of electrical disturbance in the heart.
"It says yes, anger really does impact the heart's electrical system in very specific ways that can lead to sudden death," she said.
Dr. Lampert said their findings come from a small study, and vast studies are required to determine the association between anger and irregular heartbeat.
"More research is needed, but these data suggest that therapies focused on helping patients deal with anger and other negative emotions may help reduce arrhythmias and, therefore, sudden cardiac death in certain patients," he said.
Dr. Lampert, whose findings will appear in the March 3 issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiologydefine, is currently busy in another study to see if anger management classes can help slash the risk of arrhythmia in this group of at-risk patients.
