Study: Pollyanna Will Outlive Everyone

March 6, 2009— -- If a chipper person in your life is annoying you, maybe you should brace yourself for that person outliving you in the long haul, according to findings of a new study.

A study of 100,000 women presented at the American Psychosomatic Society's annual meeting Thursday found a strong correlation between optimism and a person's risk for cancer-related death, heart disease and early death.

Researchers surveyed the personality traits of middle-age women in 1994 as part of the Women's Health Initiative study run by the National Institutes of Health.

Eight years later, researchers found that the self-reported optimistic women were less likely to have died for any reason and had a 30 percent lower death rate from heart disease.

Meanwhile, women scoring high on the hostile scales had a higher general death rate and a 23 percent greater risk of dying from a cancer-related condition by the end of the study.

The finding confirms previous studies that linked optimism to longer life, said Hilary Tindle, the lead author of the study and an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Pittsburgh.

However, the researchers could not tell if optimism was leading to healthier lifestyle choices, if optimism directly affected the physical manifestations of stress or both, Tindle said.

"What is the link? What is the mechanism? That's one thing my study can't answer," Tindle said.

Tindle suggested it could be that optimistic people physically react to mental stress better, or that they are more likely to follow a doctor's advice and, therefore, maintain their health. A third option may be a complex give-and-take between unhealthy and healthy behaviors and outlook on life.

For example, the optimistic women tended to have a healthier "risk profile," in general, Tindle said.

"They are less likely to smoke, they are more likely to be active and they are more likely to have a lower BMI [body mass index]," she said. "All of these are risk factors that certainly matter for length of life and health."