HHS HealthBeat (July 04, 2006)

Rage - road and elsewhere

From the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, I'm Ira Dreyfuss with HHS HealthBeat.

Cut me off, will you?

Every driver gets ticked at other drivers sometimes.

But when rage on the road fits a pattern of major fuse-blowing like throwing things over small problems, psychiatrists call it intermittent explosive disorder - IED.

Emil Coccaro of the University of Chicago did a survey funded by the National Institutes of Health. His study in Archives of General Psychiatry says IED might affect up to 16 million Americans.

IED can be treated with drugs - and therapy:

"If people are more likely to blow up when they're tired, that they've been drinking too much coffee, they should know that. Teaching them to recognize when they are about to blow up helps, because then they can recognize that they are about to blow up. And they could at the very least get out of the situation.'' (11 seconds)

Learn more at www.hhs.gov.

HHS HealthBeat is a production of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. I'm Ira Dreyfuss.

Last revised: August, 15 2006