HHS HealthBeat (September 7, 2009)

Less to look forward to

From the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, I’m Ira Dreyfuss with HHS HealthBeat.

A sour outlook might not be a good life strategy. A Mayo Clinic study finds people who were more depressed, anxious and pessimistic tended to die earlier.

Yonas Geda saw that in data on more than 7,000 people who lived within 120 miles of the Mayo and who took a psychological questionnaire for research purposes. They were followed for about 40 years.  He says the more negative people were, the more likely they were to die prematurely.

[Yonas Geda speaks] "The bottom line is that perhaps just focusing excessively on the half empty thing may not be that great a thing to do."

Dr. Geda doesn’t make recommendations based on this, but he says it may be better to see positive, negative and neutral.

The study in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine was supported by the National Institutes of Health.

Learn more at hhs.gov.

HHS HealthBeat is a production of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. I’m Ira Dreyfuss.

Last revised: May 7, 2011