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Do your psychological characteristics increase your risk of coronary heart disease? You've probably heard about the Type A personality - the person, usually a bloke, who's aggressive, success-oriented, and driven - but being a Type A probably doesn't increase your risk of a heart attack. So what does? Do your psychological characteristics increase your risk of coronary heart disease? You've probably heard about the Type A personality and heart disease - the person, usually a bloke, who's aggressive, success-oriented, a bit obsessive and certainly driven - a major pain in the you-know-what. But the fact is that being a Type A probably doesn't increase your risk of a heart attack. It may be a sub-group within those charming people who are really at risk of blocking a coronary artery: those expressing excessive hostility. Justice, I call it. Anyway a group in London have followed about 1500 men for several years, to see not for what personality types had more heart disease, but which psychological problems might be linked with a fatal heart attack when everything else was equal (or as equal as it could be). They found that obsessionality and obsessional neuroses increased the risk, and it was also increased in people whose psychological state was expressed in bodily symptoms. Serious anxiety, interestingly, didn't show up as a factor. The effect was dose-related - the more severe the symptoms, the higher the coronary risk. It wasn't huge but it's another bit of evidence showing that we can't ignore our psyche for wellbeing.
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