Listen to this PodcastMore 60-Second Science
-
The Best Science Writing Online 2012
Showcasing more than fifty of the most provocative, original, and significant online essays from 2011, The Best Science Writing Online 2012 will change the way...
Read More »
How healthy are you? Your best guess might be pretty accurate: Researchers found that people who gave their health a positive rating were less likely to fall ill or die over the next 30 years than were those who thought they weren’t as healthy. The work is in the journal Public Library of Science ONE. [Matthias Bopp et al., "Health Risk or Resource? Gradual and Independent Association between Self-Rated Health and Mortality Persists over 30 Years"]
More than 8,000 Swiss men and women rated their health on a scale ranging from very poor to excellent. Researchers tracked them 30 years later. Within the same age group, men who rated their health as “very poor” were greater than three times more likely to have died than were those who rated their health as “excellent.” For women, the odds almost doubled.
Nor was this trend limited to the extremes. The chances of dying went up from the “excellent” health group to the “good” one to the “fair” one, and kept increasing up to the “very poor” group.
And even after researchers took into account risk factors like smoking and medical history, the correlation between self-rated health and mortality remained. Maybe optimism also helps keep the doctor away.
—Sophie Bushwick
[The above text is a transcript of this podcast.]
See what we're tweeting about
5 Comments
Add CommentUltimately, if you manage to live accident free for a long enough time, your body will begin to break down from a variety of compounding problems associated with time, wear or abuse. The longer you age the more parts fail. Hardly anyone dies from perfect health, and that's the rub...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe fundamental choice faced by the aging: Die of natural causes or let the Medical profession torture you to death. Neither seems likely to be much fun. Can someone put a positive spin on this?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo, People who have a poor health are more likely to fall ill ? That's great science !
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe secret to living to be 100 years old is to not die.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis has been peer reviewed, in that all 100 year olds surveyed were not dead.
When the experimental subjects rated their health, they were basing on the real healthy situations of themselves.So, a grouping according to their results of physical tests may increase the reseach's reliability.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this