by Playfuls Staff |
31st August 2006
Relax, breathe deeply and think at beautiful places before reading this article. It might help you live longer.[more]
Normally, lung power declines with age, but anger makes the process of lung failure accelerate.
In a study of 670 men ranging in age from 45 to 86, they found that males who had higher levels of long-standing anger at the start of the eight-year project had significantly poorer lung function at the end of it.
"This study is one of the first to show prospectively that hostility is associated with poorer pulmonary function and more rapid rates of decline among older men," said Dr Rosalind Wright, of Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, Massachusetts, in a report online in the journal Thorax.
The hostility levels of 670 men were measured in 1986, with each being given a hostility score, and then they were monitored for a further eight years. Their lung capacity was measured on three occasions during this time.
Lung power at the start of the study was significantly worse among those who exhibited high levels of anger and hostility compared with those who exhibited medium to low levels.
But it was also worse at each examination throughout the period of study.
The link held true even after taking into account factors such as smoking.
Each point increase in the hostility score was associated with a loss of FEV1 — the volume of air that can be forced out of the lungs in one second, and a measure of lung power — of 9 ml a year compared with men whose hostility levels were lower.
Previous research has linked hostility and anger with heart disease, asthma, hypertension, irritable bowel syndrome and other disorders, although the exact causes are unclear.
One theory is that anger and hostility affect hormone processes that in turn disrupt the immune system, causing chronic inflammation that damages tissue.
"Stress-related factors are known to depress the immune function and increase susceptibility to or exacerbate a host of diseases and disorders," said Dr Paul Lehrer, of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, in an editorial in the journal.
He added that it is unknown how chronic anger contributes to
physical deterioration but said the researchers established a link between chronic anger and age-related deterioration in lung function.
"The next step is to determine the exact pathway by which this happens," said Lehrer.
