Researchers in the United States say men who suffer from anxiety are more likely than the others to have a heart attack.
They say heart attacks are not just the domain of hostile and explosive types, but nervous, withdrawn and chronically anxious people also have a higher risk.
The researchers at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles have found that men who scored the highest on tests of anxiety were 30 to 40 percent more likely than the others to have a heart attack, and these figures remained so even when the standard heart risks such as diet and smoking were taken into account.
Psychologist Biing-Jiun Shen and colleagues say that the results were over and beyond what might be explained by blood pressure, obesity, cholesterol, age, cigarette smoking, blood sugar levels and other cardiovascular risk factors.
Shen says older men with sustained and pervasive anxiety appear to be at increased risk for a heart attack even after their levels of depression, anger, hostility and type A behaviour are considered.
Type A personalities include people who are ambitious and assertive but it also often includes those who are hostile too.
Shen and colleagues analyzed data from the U.S. Normative Aging Study on 735 middle-aged or elderly men who underwent psychological tests in 1986.
At that time the men were in good health, and the researchers then followed up on them for a period of 12 years.
The researchers found that those who scored in the top 15 percentile for anxiety were more likely to suffer heart attacks later on and according to Shen that is not surprising.