Grumpy old men have sick lungs

Angry and hostile middle-aged men suffer accelerated wear and tear of their lungs, a new US study shows.

In 1986, Harvard School of Public Health doctors recruited 670 men aged 45-86, with the average age of 62.

The researchers assessed the doctors' hostility using a yardstick test called the Cook-Medley Scale and their lung power, determined by the volume of air expelled in a second.

The volunteers were tested three times over the next 8.2 years on average.

After filtering out factors that could distort the result, such as smoking and education, the researchers found that the men's hostility rating was closely linked to lung capacity.

They reported the results in the journal Thorax.

Those who became more hostile suffered a more rapid decline in lung power than counterparts whose temperament remained unchanged or became more positive.

Every point increase in hostility was associated with a loss of 9 millilitres in the air expulsion test.

Previous research has linked hostility and anger with heart disease, asthma, hypertension, irritable bowel syndrome and other disorders, although the exact causes are unclear.

One theory is that anger and hostility affect hormone processes that in turn disrupt the immune system, causing chronic inflammation that damages tissue.

But Dr Peter Lehrer of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey says that an association between hostility and lung function does not necessarily equate to cause.

"Personality, as well as physiology, can change over time, and deterioration in health and physical function can lead to negative emtions as well as vice versa, including for respiratory disease," he writes in a commentary in the same issue of the journal.