Should Negative Affect Be Added to the List of Cardiac Risk Factors?

Do negative emotions contribute to the risk for coronary artery disease (CAD)? To find out, researchers prospectively followed a cohort of some 10,000 London civil servants (age range at entry, 33–55) during a 12-year period to examine associations between positive and negative affect and the incidence of subsequent cardiac events. The researchers used the Bradburn affect balance scale to assess negative and positive affect based on participants’ responses to a self-administered questionnaire at study entry.

Among 8918 participants with complete data, 619 had new-onset angina, myocardial infarction, or fatal cardiac events during follow-up. Regression analysis (adjusted for age, sex, race, and socioeconomic status) showed no association betw…