Domineering, irritable people at risk for heart disease

RELATIONSHIPS ENRICHMENT & MANAGEMENT INSTITUTE

Tholiya Bhavan, Gr. Floor,10th Road, Santacruz-E,Mumbai.400 055.

Tel. 9324225699 Fax 022-6173203E-Mail: atholiya@gmail.com

Domineering, irritable people at risk for heart disease



-- Men who interrupt others in the middle of sentence -- as well as those that feel a flash of irritation when they are interrupted -- may be at higher risk of heart disease, results of a study suggest.

Having a dominant personality (one sign being a tendency to interrupt others) or a high level of irritability are two personality traits that make one prone to heart problems, researchers report.

"Both of these types are very much at risk of heart disease," said Dr. Aron Wolfe Siegman, a psychologist at the University of Maryland in Baltimore County, and lead author of a study in Psychosomatic Medicine.

The findings are from a study of 101 men and 95 women, including 44 people with definite heart disease and 99 without heart disease. The study subjects were interviewed when they went for an exercise stress test, which measures blood flow through the heart.

People who were rated as having a dominant personality had a 47% higher risk of heart disease, and those who had high scores of irritability had a 27% increase in heart disease risk compared with their less domineering, more easygoing counterparts.

What's more, the researchers found that the study did not support the common belief that men display their anger and women keep it in. Men and women may just express their anger differently, according to the report.

An increased heart disease risk is seen in women who have more indirect displays of anger, such as antagonistic behavior, while a man's heart risk is higher if he tends toward full-blown outward expressions of ire, the authors note.

In women, there was a correlation between heart disease and covert displays of their anger, such as wearing angry expressions or making cutting remarks. Men were more likely to suffer heart disease if they displayed dominance, such as constantly talking over others or interrupting conversations, the investigators found. Both sexes were at risk for heart disease if they were constantly irritable.

"The relationship between emotions and disease are mediated through the body," Siegman explained. Being angry and exploding or making cutting remarks increases blood pressure, causing heart damage, he said.

A subset of 97 patients had their anger levels rated by their spouses. Women's ratings of their spouses' anger-out levels corresponded with their husbands' coronary heart disease.

The same was not true for the men's ratings of their wives' displays of anger. This shows that women do not suffer heart disease related to acting out in anger as is the case with men, the researchers conclude.

"Anger should not be held in or kept in subtle ways," Siegman warned. "Anger should be discussed. You should confront the person with whom you are angry but in a controlled fashion."