Optimism is good for your heart

[Health India]: Washington, Nov 2, 2004

Are you an eternal optimist?

Well then there is good news for you, for a new study conducted by researchers at the Psychiatric Center GGZ Delfland, Delft, the Netherlands, suggests that highly optimistic people have lower risks of all-cause death, and lower rates of cardiovascular death than those with high levels of pessimism.

The team led by Erik J. Giltayand colleagues analyzed data from the Arnhem Elderly Study to test whether participants who are optimistic live longer than patients who are pessimistic.

Participants aged 65 to 85 years (999 men and women) completed a 30-item questionnaire on health, self-respect, morale, optimism and relationships. 941 (466 men, 475 women) of them had complete information on questions regarding optimism.

They were then divided into four groups based on their level of optimism. Over the follow up period of 9.1 years (1991 to 2001), there were 397 deaths. Those with high levels of optimism had a 55 percent lower risk of death from all causes, and a 23 percent lower risk of cardiovascular death.

An inverse relationship was found between level of optimism and risk of death, with a stronger protective effect of optimism in men than women for all-cause mortality, but not cardiovascular mortality.

"In conclusion, we found that the trait of optimism was an important long-term determinant of all-cause and cardiovascular mortality in elderly subjects independent of sociodemographic characteristics and cardiovascular risk factors. A predisposition toward optimism seemed to provide a survival benefit in elderly subjects with relatively short life expectancies otherwise," the authors were quoted as saying.

"Our results, combined with the finding that hopelessness was associated with an increased incidence or progression of disease, suggest that dispositional optimism affects the progression of cardiovascular disease, " they added. (ANI)