People who are usually happy and positive tend to have a lower risk of heart disease than those people who aren’t, a study published on 17th February reveals.
Although just an observational study the leading scientist, Dr Karina Davidson, has suggested that it might be possible to help prevent heart disease by enhancing people’s positive emotions.
“We desperately need rigorous clinical trials in this area. If the trials support our findings, then these results will be incredibly important in describing specifically what clinicians and/or patients could do to improve health,”
It is already known that depression and stress significantly increase people’s risk of developing heart disease, but the study is believed to be the first time happiness has been found to lessen the risk of the condition.
Over a period of 10 years, Dr. Davidson and her fellow workers followed 1,739 healthy adults (862 men and 877 women) who were taking part in the 1995 Nova Scotia Health Survey.
After taking account of age, gender, heart risk factors and pessimistic emotions, the study scientists discovered that, over the period of 10-years, increased positive affect predicted less risk of heart-related problem by 22% per point on a five-point scale measuring levels of positive affect expression.
Dr Davidson said: “Participants with no positive affect were at a 22% higher risk of ischaemic heart disease (heart attack or angina) than those with a little positive affect, who were themselves at 22% higher risk than those with moderate positive affect.
“We also found that if someone, who was usually positive, had some depressive symptoms at the time of the survey, this did not affect their overall lower risk of heart disease.
“As far as we know, this is the first prospective study to examine the relationship between clinically-assessed positive affect and heart disease.”
