Study asks: Can anger cause an irregular heartbeat?

William Atkins
Tuesday, 24 February 2009 21:05

Science - Health

The patients that showed the largest spike in the ECG involving the TWA (had the heart react the most to anger) were about ten times more likely (than people with the smallest spikes) to have their implanted defibrillator turn on (over the three-year period) and shock their body in response to an irregular heartbeat.

U.S. cardiologist Rachel Lampert, one of the authors of the study, stated, "One implication of our study is that the changes in the ECG you see with anger are what you see in a stress test.” She asked the question, “Is the anger test as good as a stress test?” and answered with: “This suggests that it is." [U.S. News and World Report: “Control Your Anger, Help Your Heart”]

Dr. Lampert added, “Feeling angry can bring on arrhythmias. It shows what anger does to the heart electrical system. In the laboratory, anger is predictive of having arrhythmias in the future." [U.S. News/World Report]

And, “It's possible that an anger test can be as predictive of future as a physical stress test, but it is too early to say we can implant a defibrillator on the basis of T-wave alternans." [U.S. News/World Report]

They concluded, “Anger-induced TWA predicts future ventricular arrhythmias in patients with ICDs, suggesting that emotion-induced repolarization instability may be 1 mechanism linking stress and sudden death.” [Paper]

And, added, “Whether there is a clinical role for anger-induced TWA testing requires further study.” [Paper]

In the United States, about 100,000 defibrillators are implanted each year into people at heightened risk from irregular heartbeats.

Such information provided by this study could help prevent these people and others from additional risk of heath emergencies and even death by better understanding the relationship of emotion (specifically anger) and the response to the heart by such emotion.

Additional information on “Heart Disease: Abnormal Heart Rhythm” is found on the MedicineNet.com website.