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RETURN TO THE WORLD SCIENCE HOME PAGE Happiness may slow the aging process, researchers find Posted
Sept.
12,
2004 Being happy may help protect you from becoming frail in old age, researchers have found.
Researchers at the University of Texas found a link between positive emotions and the likelihood of becoming frail among 1,558 older Mexican Americans living in the region. Over seven years, the number of participants who became frail increased by almost 8 percent, the researchers said. But the ones who described themselves as happy were somewhat less likely to become frail. At various points during the study, the researchers assessed how happy each participant was by asking them whether they felt hopeful, whether they they enjoyed life and similar questions. Each participant was given a score of between one and 12, based on how happy they described themselves as. Each point increase in the score, called a "positive affect score," was associated with a 3 percent decreased risk of frailty, after adjusting for relevant risk factors, the researchers said. Why this works is unclear, but the researchers speculate that positive emotions may directly affect the body's chemical balance through brain cell responses. Or a more indirect process may be at work, according to the authors, with positive emotions affecting health by increasing a person's intellectual, physical, psychological and social resources. The
study,
by
Glenn
Ostir
and
colleagues,
appears
in
the
September
issue
of
the
journal
Psychology
and
Aging.
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