TORONTO — We hear the advice "Don't worry, be happy," and "Smile, smile,
smile" in upbeat song lyrics. And when it comes to the health benefits of a
sunny disposition, they might be on to something.
A 10-year study that tracked more than 1,700 adults in Nova Scotia suggests
people who are usually happy, enthusiastic and content are less likely to
develop heart disease.
The study, published Thursday in the European Heart Journal, is believed to be
the first to show an independent relationship between clinically assessed
emotions and coronary heart disease.
"Being happy means you have less likelihood of having a heart attack 10 years
later," said psychologist Karina Davidson, director of the Center for Behavioral
Cardiovascular Health at Columbia University Medical Center in New York.
"What we don't know yet is if you're not a happy person and you were to get an
intervention to help you increase your happiness, would that offset your risk?"
The team looked at the association between positive affect - defined as the
experience of pleasurable emotions such as joy, happiness, excitement,
enthusiasm and contentment - and cardiovascular events in 1,739 adults in the
1995 Nova Scotia Health Survey. Trained nurses interviewed the 862 men and 877
women.
"We taped as they talked about their daily lives, what stresses them, how they
handle those stressors, and we then coded whether they had a lot of positive
affect," said Davidson, who hails from Vancouver and began the research in 1995
while she was at Dalhousie University in Halifax.
"We had to wait quite a few years as these people had heart attacks, and then we
looked to see whether being happy predicted fewer heart attacks, and indeed it
did."
The researchers found that over the decade, participants with no positive affect
were at 22 per cent higher risk of heart attack or angina than those with a
little positive affect, who were themselves at 22 per cent higher risk than
those with moderate positive affect.
But Davidson notes that this is an observational study, and rigorous clinical
trials are needed to support the findings.
A study would need to follow people with low levels of happiness, and randomize
them so that some receive usual care while others would receive intervention
from a trained professional to help identify ways to increase joy and excitement
in their daily lives.
"The key to adding pleasurable or enjoyable activities to one's life is that
they also be heart healthy," Davidson noted.
"So if you can learn to enjoy going for a walk after dinner, or going to the gym
to do a regular routine, or you always enjoyed hiking in your younger years and
so you go on some hikes on a regular basis, that will surely improve your heart
health."
One problem, she observed, is that some people enjoy smoking, eating ice cream
or other activities that aren't considered heart healthy - so they'd need to be
steered away from those.
Dr. Bertram Pitt, a cardiologist at the University of Michigan School of
Medicine, co-wrote an accompanying editorial in the journal and notes that the
relationship between cardiovascular disease and depression poses intriguing
research questions.
"The current therapy of depression doesn't seem to be doing that much for
depression, and certainly hasn't broken the link between depression and
cardiovascular disease," he said in an interview from Ann Arbor.
In fact, he said there's some evidence that certain antidepressants increase
cardiovascular death when they're taken with beta-blockers.
"So we have sort of a real challenge that the current treatment of depression
doesn't seem to be that effective."
The study by Davidson is important because it points out there may be some new
approaches, he said.
"I think if you can be happy and do things that make you happy, you certainly
can't lose, and you may have a great advantage in reducing your cardiovascular
risk in the future."
Source : The Canadian Press
