A personality test may do a better job than standard examinations in predicting a man's heart disease risk, researchers said on Sunday after finding a close link between hostility and heart symptoms.
Men who suffered heart attacks, chest pain or other incidents of heart disease were much more likely to have scored high in hostility on a personality exam, the team at Brown University, Harvard Medical School, Boston University, the Veteran's Administration and elsewhere found.
The team examined 774 men with an average age of 60 for their study. Forty-five men had at least one heart-related medical event during three years of follow-up.
High blood pressure, total cholesterol levels, fasting insulin, measurements of being overweight and even smoking did not predict a man's risk of heart disease in the three years the study lasted.
Of the physiological measurements, only levels of HDL or "good" cholesterol accurately predicted a man's risk of heart disease, the team, led by Raymond Niaura of Brown University's Center for Behavioral and Preventive Medicine, found.
But hostility, as measured by a standard personality test, also predicted who would develop heart disease symptoms, Niaura's team reported in the American Psychological Association journal Health Psychology.
"Furthermore, older men with the highest levels of hostility were at the greatest risk for developing CHD (coronary heart disease), independent of the effects of fasting insulin, body mass index (a measurement of obesity), waist-to-hip ratio, triglyceride levels and blood pressure," the researchers wrote.
"Hostility may influence health behaviors that themselves confer risk; hostility may be associated with sociodemographic characteristics that are, in turn, associated with increased coronary heart disease risk; and hostility may be associated with aberrations in physiological states that hasten atherosclerosis," they added.
They said their findings may not apply to women and to younger men and suggested further study.
Nonwhite men and those who have lower incomes and status are more likely to be hostile, they noted.
"In addition, hostility has been found to be associated with unhealthy behaviors, including increased cigarette use," they wrote.
(China Daily November 18, 2002)
