Sideways News

Feeling happy can have an impact on people's health

Feeling happy can help people boost their life expectancy, by lowering their risk of developing heart disease, according to new research.

A study conducted at Columbia University Medical Center and detailed in the European Heart Journal highlighted that the degree to which people express positive emotions, known as "positive affect", has an impact on their heart health.

The team studied 1,739 healthy adults over 10 years and measured both their positive affect and any signs of depression, hostility and anxiety.

It was noted that, after taking sex and heart-associated risk factors into account, those who had no positive affect were 22% more likely to develop heart disease than those with a small positive affect, who were themselves at a 22% higher risk than those with moderate positive affect.

The study's lead researcher, Karina Davidson, said: "We desperately need rigorous clinical trials in this area. If the trials support our findings, then these results will be incredibly important in describing specifically what clinicians and patients could do to improve health."

Recent research conducted by the European Society of Cardiology suggested that there may be a link between people's intelligence levels and their risk of heart disease, with individuals with low IQs being more likely to develop such conditions.