ANXIETY AND PLASMA FREE FATTY ACIDS (FFA)

Anxiety-fear and not hostility, as measured by an objective method using the content analysis of five-minutes of speech, can mobilize plasman free fatty acids (FFA) from fat stores in fasting subjects. The average rise in plasma FFA 20 minutes after beginning to speak is significantly correlated (positively) with the average anxiety scores derived from these speech samples. On three different days this psychochemical correlation is absent when examined a second time within 25 minutes after a previous assessment of anxiety from a speech sample. The relationship between the arousal of emotions and changes in plasma FFA levels has been explored by a number of investigators. It has been demonstrated that FFA levels increase in response to external stress, e.g., before examinations or surgery1; in response to hypnotic suggestion2; in reaction to the pain of a venipuncture or the request to speak extemporaneously for five minutes3,4. Gottschalk et al.4 have noted a peak increase in FFA values occuring 15-20 minutes after speaking extemporaneously five minutes and also a maximal correlation between FFA and anxiety-fear occuring about 20 minutes after such verbal behavior. Moreover, a significant correlation has been reported5 between anxiety assessed by content analysis of dream reports and the amount of change occuring in plasma FFA during the first 15 minutes of dreaming, dream-time being ascertained by the rapid eye movement (REM) method6,7. We report here a further investigation of the temporal relationship between anxiety and plasma FFA under conditions of minimal stress involving only the experimental subjects' experiencing a venipuncture and talking extemporaneously for five minutes at two specified times during each experimental session. © 1969.