ISCHAEMIC HEART DISEASE AND THE BEHAVIOR TYPE INVOLVED IN THE DETERMINATION OF ISCHAEMIC HEART DISEASE

Abstract

The role of type A personality in the predisposition towards ischaemic heart disease has been the object of extensive studies. The answer to psycho-emotional stress is modulated by the subjects’ type of personality through neuro-endocrine mechanisms and this can modulate other well-known risk factors: blood pressure level, lipid profile alteration, life style changes etc. Some of the subjects exposed to continuous professional stress, through an adjusting/adapting process, are turning their type of behavior from type A to type B. The overall aspect found in our groups could be the result of subjects turning from type A behavior to type B behaviour managing to keep their body mass unchanged and without changing the smoking habits. Type A behaviour prevails in younger subjects, and type AB or type B is more common in elderly subjects. Analyzing Bortner test we concluded that the questions don’t evaluate the hostility character type of type A behaviour, hostility being an even more important characteristic of this type than the lack of time, the original test allowed a looser self-evaluation between the two groups. Patients with ischaemic heart disease form the studied groups don’t show a higher rate of type A behaviour, as we would expect. We have exposed the adaptive conversion hypothesis from type A behaviour towards type AB behaviour and type B behaviour in engine drivers permanently exposed to professional stress that could imply the situation described above. Speaking about ischaemic heart disease and sedentary life style, we concluded that in both groups we examined the physical efforts made by all the subjects are too large, thus showing that it cannot represent a factor for heart protection against ischaemic heart disease.