[Negative emotions associated with cardiovascular diseases]

Area of Science:

• Cardiology
• Psychiatry
• Behavioral Medicine

Background:

• Negative emotions, including depression, anxiety, vital exhaustion, and hostility, are widely studied in relation to cardiovascular health.
• Specific conditions like generalized anxiety and panic disorder are linked to cardiovascular diseases.
• Vital exhaustion, characterized by loss of energy, irritability, and demoralization, is identified as a precursor to myocardial infarction.

Purpose of the Study:

• To explore the link between negative emotions and cardiovascular diseases.
• To identify vital exhaustion and hostility as significant risk factors for coronary heart diseases.
• To examine the bidirectional causality between negative emotions and cardiovascular diseases.

Main Methods:

• Analysis of patient interviews following myocardial infarction.
• Review of studies on anger suppression and expression in relation to coronary heart diseases.
• Inclusion of interview questions from European Guidelines (2016) for assessing negative emotions.

Main Results:

• Vital exhaustion is a precursor to myocardial infarction and a significant risk factor for coronary heart diseases in both sexes.
• Anger suppression and destructive anger expression are associated with a higher incidence of coronary heart diseases.
• A two-way causal relationship exists between negative emotions and cardiovascular diseases, with low heart rate variability playing a key role.

Conclusions:

• Negative emotions, particularly vital exhaustion and hostility, are crucial risk factors for cardiovascular diseases.
• The relationship between negative emotions and cardiovascular health is bidirectional.
• Tools exist to help estimate negative emotions associated with coronary heart diseases.