A recent study from the Columbia University Medical Center in New York has shed light on the profound impact of anger on the cardiovascular system. This research helps explain why stress from anger can trigger heart attacks.
The main conclusion drawn by the researchers is that anger reduces the ability of blood vessels to expand.
What the Researchers Discovered
The team involved 280 outwardly healthy adults, all of whom assured the scientists that they had no cardiovascular diseases or risk factors such as hypertension or diabetes.
Participants were randomly divided into four groups. For eight minutes, those in the first group discussed experiences that made them angry, while the second group talked about experiences that caused anxiety. The third group read sad statements, and the fourth group engaged in a neutral counting task for emotional control.
The researchers measured changes in blood flow before the experiment and several times over 100 minutes after the tasks were completed. They found that, within 40 minutes post-experiment, participants in the “anger group” showed a reduced ability for their blood vessels to expand compared to those in the control group.
Interestingly, no changes in blood vessel function were observed in volunteers from the second and third groups, as reported by Smithsonian Magazine.
“It’s surprising that anxiety and sadness do not have the same effect as anger; this suggests that the ways negative emotions contribute to the development of cardiovascular diseases may differ,” noted Daichi Simbo, the lead author of the study and a cardiologist at Columbia and Washington universities.
The team emphasized in their report that repeated episodes of anger could significantly impact cardiovascular health. However, they currently do not understand how anger is linked to blood vessel function. Future research is expected to uncover the mechanisms connecting anger to the inability of blood vessels to expand, according to the scientists.
Patients with cardiovascular diseases were intentionally excluded from the study, as they may already have issues with their blood vessels.
Looking ahead, researchers should study “populations with cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, as well as individuals living in rural areas and members of ethnic and racial minorities,” stated Rebecca Campo, a psychologist from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, which funded the research.
A limitation of the study was that it only examined short bursts of anger, while the effects of chronic anger were not measured. The results were published in the JAHA journal.
What Other Scientists Are Saying
Impaired blood vessel expansion is a precursor to the buildup of deposits within their walls, which can lead to heart attacks, according to a statement from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.
“The fact that anger can indeed provoke heart attacks is not widely known or recognized. This study offers biological plausibility to the theory that anger is harmful to humans, that it raises blood pressure, and that we observe health issues in the vessels,” said Holly Middlkauff, a cardiologist at the University of California, Los Angeles.
“We knew that stress from anger could trigger a heart attack, but we didn’t understand why until this study clarified the underlying mechanism,” remarked Brian Choi, a cardiologist at George Washington University.