▶ Excessive anger increases heart attack by 9.5 times
▶ Severe anger/stress adverse effects on the heart for more than 2 hours
After an argument, the man, whose anger has risen to the top of his head, suddenly grabs his chest and falls to the floor. It’s a scene you see occasionally in movies. Is that real? You’ll probably think of it as a dramatic scene. However, much of it turned out to be true.
What Australian researchers published in the European Journal of Cardiology is shocking. It is instructive for us who are especially excited and excitable.
The bottom line is that unbearable anger increases the risk of heart attacks (another name for acute myocardial infarction) by 9.5 times, and that intense anger and stress can adversely affect the heart for more than two hours.
This is the result of a study that investigated the behavior of patients who were hospitalized for a heart attack and then performed angiography to confirm that the coronary blood vessels were blocked for the previous 48 hours.
This phenomenon was observed in those who developed anger at level 5 or higher by dividing the level of anger into 7 levels. When looking at the situations that cause anger, the most frequent argument was with family (29%), arguments at work (14%), driving while driving (14%), and others (42%). There was a lot of anger from arguing with people who were close and had high expectations.
Also, anger that arises while driving plays a big role. Perhaps anger from common events such as traffic jams, cut-ins, and contact accidents can adversely affect the heart, so I need to train my mind.
This isn’t the only study showing that anger harms the body. A research team at Beth Israel Hospital affiliated with Harvard University published the results of their analysis of studies published between 1966 and 2013 in the Journal of the European Society of Cardiology, and this result was similar to the previous results.
Two hours after expressing anger, the incidence of heart attack was 4.7 times higher than at other times, and the incidence of ischemic stroke (cerebral infarction) was 3.6 times higher. The fatal cerebral aneurysm rupture was 6.3 times more common, so it is clear that anger toward others threatens one’s life and health.
Anger has also been shown to influence the development of life-threatening arrhythmias. There is an implantable defibrillator (ICD) that saves lives by giving an electric shock. When performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) in a hospital, you may have seen a doctor applying an electric shock to a patient’s chest. A miniature version of this electric shock device is the ICD.
In people with arrhythmia, an ICD is inserted into the body to prevent death from ‘ventricular tachycardia’, which is called the ‘leader of sudden death’. It was twice as likely to automatically generate an electric shock within 15 minutes when a person with an ICD in their chest provoked anger. Without this electric shock, this person would have almost lost his life.
Why does extreme anger cause fatal harm to the heart or brain? Stress is the main cause. Severe stress releases hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline into the blood, which increases heart rate and constricts blood vessels, causing blood pressure to rise sharply and blood viscosity to damage the heart and blood vessels in the brain.
From these results alone, anger itself appears to be just as dangerous as other heart risk factors, but this is not necessarily the case. People with normal cardiovascular risk factors should be wary of experiencing extreme anger.
In other words, the results of several studies show that people with cardiovascular risk factors such as high blood pressure, diabetes, and smoking can manage their mind better and live a healthy life while reducing stress.
Tae-Ho Roh, Professor Emeritus, Catholic University (President, Roh Tae-Ho Heart Clinic)>