Pessimists are more likely to suffer from cardiovascular disease

American scientists have come to the conclusion that pessimists are more likely to suffer from cardiovascular diseases and also die earlier, TASS reported referring to JAMA Network Open.

Experts led by Alan Rozansky studied 15 scientific papers, the authors of which analyzed data on about 230 thousand people. On average, these studies lasted from two to 40 years, and optimists or pessimists among their participants were determined using questionnaires. In the part of research, they consisted of only one question, in others they included much more. Most of these studies (eight) were in the US, the remaining in Europe (five), in Israel and Australia (one each).

The analysis showed that optimists run the risk of getting cardiovascular disease 35% less than pessimists. And the probability of early death for optimists is 14% less than that of pessimists.

Scientists can explain the results only by statistics, and the authors of the work have not established the exact biological mechanisms that would be associated with this. Previous studies, the authors of which compared the life expectancy of optimists and pessimists, explained the difference by the fact that the former are more likely to play sports, pay attention to a healthy diet and engage in anti-stress therapy.

One must understand that scientific work has drawbacks. Firstly, all studies analyzed by its authors are geographically limited mainly by the US and Europe. The second limitation is the different duration of the research, another one is the different way of identifying optimists and pessimists. So whether optimism really affects the risk of cardiovascular disease, early mortality, or overall life expectancy, as this and other similar studies say, still needs to be checked.