You don't need to be very happy to avoid an early death from chronic disease, study finds
Baku, October 23, AZERTAC
A new study suggests that being happier could help reduce your risk of dying prematurely from chronic diseases like cancer, diabetes and heart disease. But the threshold at which this happiness effect kicks in is fairly low, according to Live Science.
Happiness is known to correlate with better health. But now, researchers have identified a happiness threshold above which people are less likely to die prematurely of chronic diseases like cancer, diabetes and heart disease.
By comparing data from 123 countries over 15 years, researchers pinpointed a threshold at which mortality declined as well-being increased. Every incremental improvement in well-being above this level was tied to a corresponding drop in the risk of death.
Cancer, heart disease, asthma and other chronic diseases accounted for 75% of non-pandemic related deaths in 2021, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). In the U.S., they're collectively the leading causes of illness, disability and death.
Overall chronic disease mortality decreased in the U.S. between 2010 and 2019, but its prevalence increased among Americans ages 20 to 45 years old, according to a study published in The Lancet earlier this year.
Although previous research assumed a positive association between happiness and health, the goal for this new study, which was published Monday (Oct. 20) in the journal Frontiers of Medicine, was to identify a tipping point at which a higher level of well-being would be associated with measurable health improvements — namely, a reduction in premature deaths due to chronic disease.
To do that, the researchers looked at yearly happiness scores in 123 countries, which they averaged to estimate the national level of subjective well-being.
Respondents from the happiness datasets used in the study were asked to visualize a ladder, with the top representing the best possible life and the bottom the worst. They were then asked to rate their present satisfaction and assess their future on a scale of 0 (bottom of the ladder) to 10 (top of the ladder). This tool, known as the Cantril's life ladder scale, is a well-known social science tool used to gauge life satisfaction.
Researchers then compared this measure of national well-being with chronic disease mortality rates in each country over a period of 15 years (2006 to 2021).
The study identified a happiness threshold of 2.7 on the life ladder scale. Above that threshold, every 1% increase in happiness was associated with a 0.43% decrease in premature deaths from chronic disease.
The average life ladder score among the 123 countries studied was 5.45 between 2006 and 2021, so a 2.7 score suggests participants were "barely coping," study co-author Iulia Iuga, a professor at 1 Decembrie 1918 University in Romania said in a statement.
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