Emotionally stressful events, and more specifically, anger, immediately precede and appear to trigger the onset of acute heart attack. Episodes of anger are capable of triggering the onset of acute heart attack and aspirin can reduce this risk. People who cannot control their anger should ask their doctors to consider taking aspirin.

The Onset Anger Scale identified 39 patients with episodes of anger in the 2 hours before the onset of heart attack. The relative risk of heart attack in the 2 hours after an episode of anger was 23. Regular users of aspirin had a significantly lower relative risk (1.4) than nonusers (2.9). Anger in response to stress is also of particular importance for the development of premature heart attack in young men. An episode of anger may also trigger an acute heart attack in the next 2 hours.