A recent study entitled Optimism, Cynical Hostility, and Incident Coronary Heart Disease and Mortality in the Women’s Health Initiative, published in the journal Circulation, argues that optimism as applied philosophy of life is a protective shield for women against heart disease and other disorders, even to the extent of reducing female mortality.

The research conducted through a sample of 97,253 postmenopausal women (89,259 white and 7994 black, aged between 50 and 79 years, free of cancer and cardiovascular disease), reveals that positive attitude reduces risk of coronary disorder among postmenopausal women.

The research team was headed by Hilary A. Tindle, a professor of medicine at the University of Pittsburgh in the US. The authors used two specialized questionnaires that determined the ‘life orientation’ with which the participants were faced with on a day to day basis.

According to Tindle, “This study represents a key step for future research in this area, both on how attitudes can affect health in the conduct of randomized controlled trials to examine whether attitudes can be modified to improve health.”

The findings reveal that optimistic women showed less proneness to diabetes and hypertension, cholesterol and depressive symptoms, and also showed a lower incidence of risk factors and behaviors such as smoking, sedentary lifestyle, or high body mass index.

The study proves the inverse relationship between optimism and coronary heart disease as risk of death.

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Via Circulation