Toxic Affect: Are Anger, Anxiety, and Depression Independent Risk Factors for Cardiovascular Disease?

Abstract

Three negative affective dispositions—anger, anxiety, and depression—are hypothesized to increase physical disease risk and have been the subject of epidemiological studies. However, the overlap among the major negative affective dispositions, and the superordinate construct of trait negative affectivity (NA) are only beginning to be tested. Presented here is a narrative review of recent prospective studies that simultaneously tested anger, anxiety, depression, and trait NA as risk factors for cardiac outcomes. Anxiety and depression emerged as independent risk factors for premature heart disease in population studies of persons nominally healthy at baseline, and for recurrence/mortality among patients with existing heart disease. General trait NA also was a cardiac risk factor in population samples.