Getting mad can double your heart attack risk

GETTING very angry or upset more than doubles the risk of having a heart attack within an hour, scientists have found.

Doing heavy exercise can also double the risk – while combining a workout and intense emotions can triple it.

Researchers said these triggers appeared to increase risk regardless of the presence of other factors that could cause a heart attack, including age, obesity and high blood pressure.

They said the link could be explained because extreme emotions often have a similar physical effect as heavy exercise – and recommend that ‘all of us should practice mental wellness and avoid losing our temper to extremes’. The international study looked at data from 12,461

‘Avoid losing our temper’

first-time heart attack patients, who had an average age of 58.

It found one in seven had experienced intense emotions or done heavy exercise – or both – in the hour before their attack.

Overall, 14.4 per cent had experienced anger or upset and 13.6 per cent reported heavy physical activity.

Lead author Dr Andrew Smyth, of McMaster University in Canada, said: ‘Both exercise and extreme emotions can raise blood pressure and heart rate, changing the flow of blood through blood vessels and reducing blood supply to the heart.

‘This is particularly important in blood vessels already narrowed by plaque, which could block the flow of blood leading to a heart attack.’ Last night the British Heart Foundation said that while the research suggested emotion or physical exertion were triggers for heart attacks, they were not an underlying cause.