Heart risk higher in Type D personalities--study

Worrywarts are more likely to suffer heart attack, heart failure, heart rhythm disorders, and death, than the heart patients with happier personality profiles.

Are you Type D?
So what are these Type D personalities that are more prone to cardiovascular diseases?

Type D personality was first defined in the '90s to describe someone, who is often gripped by feelings of negativity, depression, anxiety, stress, anger, and loneliness.

Such people worry too much, and often expect the worst of everything. They suffer low self-esteem and are unable to socialize much.

Type D personalities are tense, often very angry, and typically closed people, who do not share their feelings with others out of fear of rejection.

"There is a clear connection between heart risk and psychological risk factors, and those people who have this personality and lack social support have higher risk of health problems."

Twenty percent of healthy Americans fall in this ‘Type D’ category and about 50 percent of patients are ‘Type D,’ revealed study author Johan Denollet, a psychologist at Tilburg University in the Netherlands.

Type D: more heart problems
After analyzing 49 previous studies involving more than 6,000 people, Denollet and his colleagues found that heart patients, who fall in Type D category, had a greater risk of dying as compared to other personalities.

The study, which appears in the journal ‘Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes,’ shows that Type D’s are 3.7 times more likely than others, to suffer heart problems.

“There is a clear connection between heart risk and psychological risk factors, and those people who have this personality and lack social support have higher risk of health problems,” says Nieca Goldberg, M.D., director of the Women's Heart Program at New York University's Langone Medical Center.

Stress is the main culprit
Though this link between Type D personality and heart risk is not clearly understood, experts believe that stress hormones, if always present in your system, could lead to heart problems.

“Stress hormones and stress reactions are great in fight-or-flight -- like when a prehistoric man was being chased by a saber-toothed tiger -- but they are not so good when they flood your body 24/7,” Karol Watson, M.D., the co-director of preventive cardiology at UCLA's David Geffen School of Medicine, was quoted as saying.

Stress leads to high levels of cortisol, which may elevate blood pressure and eventually lead to chronic, artery-damaging inflammation.

Denollet says that Type D's general behavior also makes them more prone to heart problems as they are less likely to exercise, quit smoking, and are rather bad at “complying with treatment programs.”

Also, insecurity in social situations makes them shy away from seeking medical help.

Type D’s can benefit from professional help
The researchers urge such people to seek professional help.

"Type Ds need to take a more active approach toward their own health," Denollet says. "They may benefit from counseling, so that they can learn how to deal with everyday stressful situations in a more adaptive way.”