Hostility, the Metabolic Syndrome, and Incident Coronary Heart Disease

This investigation examined the impact of hostility and the metabolic syndrome on coronary heart disease (CHD) using prospective data from the Normative Aging Study. Seven hundred seventy-four older, unmedicated men free of cardiovascular disease were included in the study. The total Cook-Medley Hostility (Ho) Scale score, anthropometric data, serum lipids, fasting insulin concentrations, blood pressure, cigarette smoking, alcohol consumption, and total dietary calories were used to predict incident CHD during a 3-year follow-up interval. Multivariate analysis indicated that only Ho positively predicted and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol level negatively predicted incident CHD. Ho's effects on CHD may be mediated through mechanisms other than factors that constitute the metabolic syndrome.