By Marilyn Ellias, USA TODAY
 Vancouver,
British Columbia—Hostile, easily stressed people are most
likely to develop "apple-shaped" bodies—the shape
known to pose the greatest risk to heart attacks—suggest
studies out over the weekend.
The findings about those with the fat stored
at the tummy rather than the hips or buttocks, reported to the
American Psychosomatic Society, help fill out an emerging picture
of how personality affects cardiovascular health.
"Psychological traits are an important
factor contributing to abdominal obesity," says Karen Matthews
of the University of Pittsburgh Medical School.
High anger levels and an apple shape increase
coronary risk. In Matthews' 13-year study of 157 women, the more
fat a woman stored in her abdomen, the higher her score on an
anger questionnaire administered at the beginning of the study.
Also, women whose anger levels increased the most over 13 years
were most likely to have fat bellies.
In a study of 1,081 men, high hostility levels
were related to overall weight and to a high waist-to-hip ratio
of weight. The tie between hostility and heart disease (coronaries
and angina) was linear; the more hostile the men were, the greater
their chances of cardiac disease, says Raymond Niaura of Brown
University Medical School in Providence, R.I.
 Cortisol,
a stress hormone, may be "the primary driver" here,
Niaura says. Cortisol secretion promotes the depositing of fat
disproportionally in the abdomen areas rather than the hips or
buttocks, he says.
Hostile people "almost make their own stress,"
he says. "They're vigilant because they think someone's out
to get them. They're always having nasty interactions "that
can trigger stress-hormone surges, which, in turn, promote abdominal
obesity."
A direct link between the apple shape and the
release of cortisol was shown in a study by Yale University psychologist
Elissa Epel. She gave lab tasks known to be stressful to 60 women;
half were apple-shaped, half not. Apples secreted more cortisol
in response to the tasks. They also found them more threatening
and performed worse.
Abdominal fat "may be a sign of greater
psychological vulnerability to stress," Epel says.
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