While research on mortality from coronary heart disease has largely focused on physiological factors, an increasing amount of evidence links mental health and personality traits to CHD, too, according to the study.
The 11-year prospective cohort study followed 2,267 men and women ages 52 to 76. The study determined each participant’s dispositional optimism and pessimism by asking them to rate how well positive and negative statements applied to them on a scale from zero to four. The researchers also measured participants’ cholesterol levels, blood pressure, glucose readings and other health and behavioral indicators.
At the end of the study period, 122 people died from CHD. After controlling for major risk factors, such as smoking and diabetes, the researchers found that the subjects in the highest quartile of pessimism were more than 2.2 times more likely to die of CHD than those in the lowest quartile.
The study also found that optimism did not seem to have the opposite effect — it did not mitigate the risks of CHD-induced mortality.
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