Dandelion clock
If you – or your parents – were fans of the iconic radio programme ITMA, you’ll remember the catchphrase of the depressed charlady Mona Lott: “it’s being so cheerful keeps me going” – and it seems she spoke truer than she knew. New research findings indicate that how positively you rate your own health has a bearing on how long you’ll live.
Researchers from the Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine at the University of Zurich analysed data from more than 8000 people spanning a time period of more than 30 years. The study participants had been asked, between 1977 and 1979, to rate their health as either excellent, good, fair, poor, or very poor. The researchers then were able to check mortality rates on the same individuals using census, mortality or emigration records.
They found that men who rated their health as very poor were 3.3 times more likely to die during the study timespan than those who rated their health as excellent, and women were 1.9 times more likely to die. And the risk of mortality increased with the more pessimistic ratings – those who rated themselves as in very poor health were more at risk of earlier mortality than those who said poor, and so on.
Of course, it could be that individuals who rate their health poorly take less good care of themselves, but the researchers factored in education levels, marital status, smoking status, medical history (including medication usage), blood pressure and blood glucose.
So the researchers conclude that those who rate their health as good or excellent have other characteristics or attributes that somehow improve their physical wellbeing. These, they say, could include a positive attitude or optimistic outlook, or a fundamental satisfaction with life. “Generally, I do not think that disease is caused by negative thinking,” says study author Dr Matthias Bopp. “I would rather say that the probability of longevity depends not only on biomedical and behavioural risk factors in a strict sense but also on mental and social well-being and that obviously people rate their health following a broad notion of health including all these dimensions. Individuals with a vast amount of resources in all these domains have not only the best chances to cope with problems but also to get old (and most probably were also more optimistic).”
The researchers argue that this shows that medical professionals should not only look at diseases or physical risk factors for disease, but also to the patient’s mental and social wellbeing – and, if necessary, offering advice or support for improving these aspects of a person’s life.