A recent study claims that being pessimistic is more likely to cause a person from developing risks of heart disease. Scientists claim that pessimists are about twice as likely to die of heart disease as people who take a more balanced view. It was found that a team of psychiatrists at the Paijat-Hame Central Hospital in Finland was the first to examine heart disease mortality and its association with optimism and pessimism independently.
Pessimistic Point Of View Leading To Heart Problem
In one of his statements reported by Daily Mail, study lead author Dr. Mikko Pänkäläinen has revealed that certain levels of pessimism can be measured quite easily and pessimism might be a very useful tool together with other known risk factors such as diabetes, hypertension or smoking to determine the risk of CHD-induced mortality.
In conducting the study, it was found that the team of psychiatrists followed the data that was gathered in the year 2002 in almost 2,267 Finnish patients aged between 52 and 76 for 11 years. According to The Times, the patients' levels of optimism and pessimism were rated when asked regarding their opinion with statements such as "If something can go wrong for me, it will", "In uncertain times, I usually expect the best" and other optimistic statements
Furthermore, it was said that researchers of the study was able to have allegedly found that the 121 men and women who died from heart disease during the study's eleven-year follow-up period had been noted to be more pessimistic at the start as compared to people who were still alive at follow-up.
On the other hand, the researchers highly emphasized the fact that the study was limited since the data were known to be self-reported. Nevertheless, the researchers claim that demonstrating the attitude of pessimism is still not essential for a person's health.
