I'm a complete optimist, I'm going to live to 98 and have fun the rest of my life. Life is great.
http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2016/12/02/aje.kww182.short?rss=1
- Eric S. Kim*,
- Kaitlin A. Hagan,
- Francine Grodstein,
- Dawn L. DeMeo,
- Immaculata De Vivo and
- Laura D. Kubzansky
- ↵*Correspondence to Dr. Eric S. Kim, Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, 677 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA 02215 (e-mail: eskim@hsph.harvard.edu).
-
Abbreviations: CI, confidence interval; HR, hazard ratio; MET, metabolic equivalent of task.
- Received May 19, 2016.
- Accepted October 28, 2016.
Abstract
Growing evidence has linked positive
psychological attributes like optimism to a lower risk of poor health
outcomes, especially
cardiovascular disease. It has been demonstrated in
randomized trials that optimism can be learned. If associations between
optimism and broader health outcomes are
established, it may lead to novel interventions that improve public
health and longevity.
In the present study, we evaluated the association
between optimism and cause-specific mortality in women after considering
the role of potential confounding (sociodemographic
characteristics, depression) and intermediary (health behaviors, health
conditions) variables. We used prospective data
from the Nurses’ Health Study (n = 70,021). Dispositional
optimism was measured in 2004; all-cause and cause-specific mortality
rates were assessed from 2006
to 2012. Using Cox proportional hazard models, we
found that a higher degree of optimism was associated with a lower
mortality
risk. After adjustment for sociodemographic
confounders, compared with women in the lowest quartile of optimism,
women in
the highest quartile had a hazard ratio of 0.71
(95% confidence interval: 0.66, 0.76) for all-cause mortality. Adding
health
behaviors, health conditions, and depression
attenuated but did not eliminate the associations (hazard ratio = 0.91,
95% confidence
interval: 0.85, 0.97). Associations were maintained
for various causes of death, including cancer, heart disease, stroke,
respiratory disease, and infection. Given that
optimism was associated with numerous causes of mortality, it may
provide a
valuable target for new research on strategies to
improve health.
The top 25% most optimistic women compared with the least optimistic quartile had:
- 38% lower risk of dying from heart disease
- 16% lower risk of dying from cancer
- 39% lower risk of dying from stroke
- 38% lower risk of dying from respiratory disease
- 52% lower risk of dying from infection
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