Marcella La Cioppa According to recent research, happy people have a much lower risk of developing cardiovascular diseases, such as heart attacks or strokes.
@Jill Wellington/PixaBay
It is well understood that life satisfaction or a sense of well-being supports good mental health, but now the effects of well-being on cardiovascular health have been less certain.
Medical records from over 120,000 adults in the United Kingdom were analyzed, averaging 57 years, and demonstrated people with life satisfaction do have a significantly reduced risk of heart attacks and strokes.
In this new study, published in the Journal of the American Heart Association, happy people were also at lower risk for coronary heart disease, heart attack, heart failure and stroke compared with people who had lower levels of well-being, the study said.
Researchers suggested that a holistic approach to life – namely regular physical activity, social engagement, and/or stress management techniques – serves as an effective way to raise personal well-being.
The study
In the presented research, the investigation team assessed the feeling of well-being, depending on satisfaction with family, friendship, health, finance, and overall happiness, judging by questionnaires filled out by over 120,000 subjects included in the UK Biobank database.
The team studied the association of well-being with the risk of the four major cardiovascular conditions: coronary artery disease, heart attack, heart failure, and stroke. The authors of the study also looked at the influence of well-being on lifestyle factors and markers of inflammation.
Results from these data indicated that, compared with adults who had a low sense of well-being, the overall risk of developing cardiovascular disease was 10% to 21% lower among those with the highest well-being scores.
Compared with the lowest well-being category of adults, the highest well-being category had a 44% lower risk of coronary artery disease, 45% lower risk of stroke, 51% lower risk of heart failure, and 56% lower risk of heart attack.
These findings are indicative of how mental and emotional health can have such strong influence on physical health because it serves to shed light on very complex biological mechanisms that weren’t so well understood.
Source: American Heart Association
