Anger can alter blood vessel function, increasing the risk of heart attacks and strokes, even if it lasts only a few minutes. The discovery might help to explain why these things happen to some people when they have emotional outbursts.
This finding is based on research done on young individuals who appeared to be in good health. While various aspects of their circulatory health were measured, the participants were invited to reflect on earlier incidents that had caused them anger. It should come as no surprise that none of them suffered a heart attack or stroke during this procedure, but they did suffer from a blood vessel dysfunction associated with such consequences.
This implies that strong emotions may be linked to cardiac events in individuals with pre-existing medical conditions, according to Daichi Shimbo of Columbia University in New York.
Studies of different kinds have revealed that strong emotional events may be the cause of heart attacks. For example, one study discovered that patients were more than twice as likely to report feeling angry or irritated emotionally in the hour prior to a heart attack as they were in the same hour the day before. However, the mechanism for this remained elusive.
In order to conduct their investigation, Shimbo and his colleagues recruited 280 volunteers and arbitrarily assigned them to either of three experiences that cause anger, anxiety, or sadness for eight minutes, or they could simply count upward until the timer went off as a comparison, all the while having various measurements taken.
These included drawing blood, monitoring their blood pressure, and assessing their blood vessel dilatation capacity in response to a routine procedure that involves limiting blood flow to the arm and then allowing it to return.
Lower dilation capacity has been associated with an increased risk of heart attacks. This dilation capacity is believed to be a measure of blood vessel health.
Participants in the study experienced a 40-minute drop in their blood vessel dilatation capacity when asked to reflect and discuss a recent angry incident.
The researchers noted in their report that “it is possible that [these effects] occur routinely throughout the day or week with potentially long-term consequences.” “Repeated episodes of a negative emotion may affect cardiovascular physiology over time, causing… irreversible damage.”
Neither the control group nor the individuals assigned to the sensations of grief or anxiety had a blood vessel response. Furthermore, none of the groups showed any variation in the other metrics.
According to University College London’s Andrew Steptoe, the effects of anger on blood vessel function are consistent with findings that heart attacks are sometimes thought to be precipitated by strong emotions. But he adds that it’s not always simple for people to avoid becoming furious. “If people have serious problems, there are anger management interventions, but it’s quite difficult, for some of these emotions, to modify them very well.”
“While not all the mechanisms on how psychological states impact cardiovascular health have been elucidated, this study clearly takes us one step closer to defining such mechanisms,” says Glenn Levine of Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas.