This Article  • References  • Full text PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in JAMA  Social Bookmarking   What's this?

Maurizio Fava, MD
Massachusetts General Hospital Boston

Stefania Lamon-Fava, MD
Tufts University Boston

JAMA. 1987;258(7):907-908.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

To the Editor.—

We are writing in reference to the article concerning the role of the white blood cell (WBC) count as an independent predictor for the risk of ischemic diseases.¹ The authors mention the possibility that the WBC count could merely be a marker for stress. To support their statement that stress is a cardiovascular risk factor associated with increased blood catecholamine levels and with an elevated WBC count, they quote an article by Friedman et al² that not only does not mention leukocytes at all, but does not even mention the word stress. This article reports instead the results of a study on catecholamine secretion in the type A behavior pattern, an action/emotion complex characterized by aggressive and competitive drive and an enhanced sense of urgency.

We are surprised that the authors did not consider the possibility that the type A behavior pattern, rather than stress, . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter     What's this?