About 20 percent of the general population is clinically hostile. Thirteen of the 14 depressed patients who died within 12 months were also diagnosed as clinically hostile. Judith I. Pool, PhD., an Allentown psychologist who is studying stress management intervention in depressed and hostile cardiac patients, said Kaufmann's study confirms other findings in the scientific literature that show the two emotions are risk factors for cardiac illness and death. Pool said the study sends the message that doctors and psychologists should aggressively treat their depressed heart patients and ''help the patient do everything possible to relieve the depression'' either through medication, counseling or both. You can't heal chronic anger.
Anger is usually a mask for sadness.
Kaufmann surmises that hostility's toll on the body may take longer to manifest itself. He said doctors need to pay more attention to the role depression and hostility may play in heart disease, since the cause of heart attacks is unknown in about 40 percent of heart attack cases. The healing scar of a heart attack takes maybe 10 days.