Optimistic self-esteem of health - a pledge of a long life
Last reviewed: 16.10.2021
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The way people assess their health affects the likelihood of survival in the next decades. This conclusion was drawn by scientists from the Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine at the University of Zurich (Switzerland).
Needless to say, a pessimistic assessment goes hand in hand with an increased risk of illness or death. A person who thinks about his health as a bad person, often leads not the most correct way of life and really has fragile health or is already sick. However, the previous work, during which the participants held a very brief observation, showed that the correlation remains, even if all these factors are taken into account.
In the current study, Zurich specialists demonstrated that self-esteem of health is also associated with the probability of survival or death for a long time that exceeds thirty years. Thus, men who rated their health as "very poor" died 3.3 times more often than their peers who chose the "excellent" rating. And for women who considered their health "very bad," the probability of dying was 1.9 times higher than that of women who believed they were in excellent health.
After taking into account the level of education, marital status, tobacco abuse, medical history, use of medicines, blood pressure and blood sugar levels, the correlation between self-assessment of health and mortality has somewhat weakened. The difference in the risk of death between the best and worst scores was 1: 2.9 for men and 1: 1.5 for women.
The results of the research are published in the journal PLoS ONE.