With a thumping sound, the heart pumps oxygenated and nutrient-rich blood to all parts of the body over and over again to keep life going. In the midst of this tireless cycle, a number of crises are occurring.
Whenever the term “healthy living” is mentioned, many key words automatically come to mind: regular work and rest; low-salt and low-fat diets; avoiding sedentary lifestyle; moderate exercise; and quitting smoking and drinking. What are the consequences of failing to do so? As a matter of fact, most of these adverse health effects accumulate little by little and are felt in the blood vessels throughout the body, especially in the cardiovascular system.
In fact, cardiovascular disease is a major cause of death worldwide. According to data published by the World Health Organization (WHO), about 17.9 million people die of cardiovascular diseases every year. As the name suggests, cardiovascular diseases are related to the heart and blood vessels, and include many familiar names, such as coronary heart disease, atherosclerosis, heart failure, high blood pressure, and so on. The real cause of death is usually a stroke or sudden cardiac death triggered by some sudden stimulus.
For people whose cardiovascular system is not very strong, a few sleepless nights or a stimulating event can lead to an imbalance in vascular function. Especially in some extreme negative emotions, such as anger, once the body’s blood vessels can not be adjusted in time, it is very likely to precipitate a heart attack, stroke and other tragedies.
We often use the term “angry to death” to exaggerate the extent of their own anger. But frighteningly, a new study suggests that each bout of anger, even if only for a few brief minutes, can alter the functioning of our blood vessels, thereby increasing the risk of heart disease and stroke – or “death by anger” – in some cases. risk of heart disease and stroke – or “death by anger”.
As early as the 1960s, researchers suggested that the experience of negative emotions was associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, excluding traditional risk factors. And previous studies have found that stressful emotions such as anger and anxiety can be detrimental to heart health. However, there has been a knowledge gap about exactly how these strong emotions affect the heart and blood vessels.
They can’t be ignored
To explore the mechanisms behind this, the researchers focused on a seemingly insignificant layer of cells, the vascular endothelium.
The blood vessels in the human body are intricate, spreading throughout the body like a network of highways that make up the circulatory system. Most of these “highways” are vibrant, tirelessly transporting blood, and it is the endothelial cells that are the key to maintaining a smooth road.
Early researchers believed that the endothelium was simply a selective biological barrier lining the inner walls of blood vessels with a single layer of cells, whose function was to separate blood from the vessels and form a smooth inner wall of the tubes, allowing the blood to flow as unobstructed as possible. This function, while important, does not seem to be highly associated with highway system disorders, also known as cardiovascular disease.
But as the vascular endothelium was explored in greater depth, researchers soon realized that this seemingly simple layer also has a variety of biological functions, such as endocrine functions. For example, the endothelium constantly monitors the blood environment, responding to and secreting biologically active substances that regulate the blood vessels to dilate or constrict at the right time, thereby regulating blood pressure.
Among these functions, vasodilation is extremely important to allow more blood to reach the needed tissues quickly. Like a responsive traffic controller, it opens up lanes of the highway during rush hour to avoid traffic congestion.
Obviously, when these endothelial cells become dysfunctional, they can easily trigger a series of problems in the highway system, such as increased blood thickening, thrombosis, arterial clogging and hardening. Therefore, endothelial cell dysfunction is also regarded as one of the precursor features of many vascular diseases.
So, could negative emotions increase the risk of cardiovascular disease by affecting endothelial cell function and, in turn, increase the risk of cardiovascular disease?
Who’s sadder
A new study published recently in the Journal of the American Heart Association explored in detail for the first time the effects of different negative emotions: anger, anxiety and sadness on the vasodilator function of endothelial cells, and the findings, while very plausible, seem at the same time to be somewhat surprising.
The researchers recruited 280 (seemingly) healthy adults between the ages of 18 and 73, all of whom self-reported that they had no health risks such as cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, or diabetes, and all of whom were free of risk factors such as smoking, medication use, and mood disorders.
The researchers randomized them into four groups. For eight minutes, participants in each of the four groups were asked to talk about experiences that triggered anger, talk about experiences that triggered anxiety, read content that triggered sadness, or simply count – controlling for a neutral state of emotion – to serve as a control group.
The researchers measured changes in the participants’ blood flow several times before the experiment and after 3, 40, 70, and 100 minutes after the experiment. They found that participants in the sadness and anxiety groups did not appear to have their vasodilatory capacity significantly affected compared to the control group. In contrast, the vasodilatory capacity of participants in the anger group was significantly reduced for up to 40 minutes after the experiment, and then this effect only tapered off afterward.
“It’s fascinating that anxiety and sadness did not have the same effect on vasodilatory function as anger, suggesting that negative emotions don’t trigger heart disease in the same way,” Daichi Shimbo, the study’s first author and a cardiologist at Columbia University, said in an interview with The Washington Post ( Washington Post).
Dangerous Rage
With this study, the researchers point to the effects of anger on vasodilatory mechanisms, but they are not clear about the specific processes involved. shimbo hypothesizes that activation of the autonomic nervous system, stress hormones that cause vascular changes, and the accumulation of inflammatory factors in the arteries may influence the endothelial cells’ regulation of vasodilatory function.
But the results of this study are certainly raising the alarm that anger, a common emotion, is damaging our health. Although the study only measured the short-term effects of anger, once these effects are repeated over a week or even a day, over the years, they may have long-term consequences, causing irreversible damage to cardiovascular function.
And vascular health risks, especially limited vasodilatation, are actually a precursor to many cardiovascular diseases, such as atherosclerosis. The study recruited participants whose average age was actually only 26, which is generally young and healthy. But even so, anger can have a significant impact. Globally, cardiovascular disease is occurring in younger people.
For people who are often angry, perhaps regardless of age, it’s important to consciously try to manage anger, such as through strategies like exercise, yoga, deep breathing, or cognitive behavioral therapy. It’s not easy to do, but still, I want to wish those of you reading this at least a peaceful present moment.