The association between anger-related personality trait and cardiac autonomic response abnormalities in elderly subjects

Cardiac autonomic response abnormality associated with trait anger has been recognized to elevate blood pressure in daily life, leading to atherosclerotic progression and cardiovascular disease. To clarify the relationship between anger-related personality traits and cardiac autonomic response in healthy elderly subjects, 54 volunteers consisting of 30 male (mean age 62.2 ± 5.4) and 24 female (mean age 58.4 ± 4.6) subjects underwent testing of heart rate variability (HRV) with head-up tilt. For the evaluation of trait anger, we used a questionnaire corresponding to the trait anger score taken from the State and Trait Anger Expression Inventory. Furthermore, we measured carotid intima-medial thickness (IMT) to evaluate atherosclerotic progression in subjects with anger trait. In female subjects, higher trait anger was positively associated with elevated carotid IMT and the suppression of HRV vagal attenuation from the supine to head-up position, and negatively associated with the HRV sympathetic activity in the head-up position and also with the HRV sympathetic response from the supine to head-up position. In male subjects, trait anger was not significantly associated with carotid IMT or any HRV component with or without head-up tilt testing. We conclude that a simple noninvasive measure, short-term HRV with head-up tilt testing, could be a useful method to investigate the association between cardiac autonomic imbalance and increased risk of atherosclerosis associated with trait anger in healthy elderly subjects.