Hot tempers can be tough on lungs

Lung power normally declines as a person ages but being angry and hostile can speed up the process, researchers said last week.

In a study of 670 men ages 45 to 86, they found that males who had higher levels of long-standing anger at the start of the eight-year project had significantly poorer lung function at the end of it.

The scientists, who used a scoring system to measure the levels of anger of each of the men, tested their lung power three times during the study. The results were reported online in the journal Thorax.

Even after taking account of other factors (such as smoking) that can have an effect on lung power, they found that hostility and anger had a negative effect.

Dr. Rosalind Wright of Harvard School of Public Health in Boston and her team of researchers suggested that the negative emotions could change biological process and may disturb the immune system and cause chronic inflammation.