Prospective data from the Health and Retirement Study, a nationally representative study of older US adults, was analyzed to examine the relationship between optimism and heart failure, adjusting for sociodemographic, biological, behavioral, and psychological covariates. Higher optimism was associated with a lower risk of incident heart failure during the follow-up period, and these effects persisted when accounting for covariates.
Little is known about the perception of lifetime risk for cardiovascular disease (CVD). Researchers recruited subjects from the Dallas Heart Study, and each subject was classified as high or low for risk of CVD. Subjects were then assessed for their perceived lifetime risk for a myocardial infarction. There was significant discordance between perceived and predicted lifetime risk.
This research study assessed whether antecedent and response-focused emotion regulation had any divergent associations with likelihood of developing cardiovascular disease. Increases in antecedent-focused emotion regulation strategies (reappraisal) were associated with lower cardiovascular disease risk, and increases in response-focused emotion regulation strategies (suppression) were associated with higher cardiovascular disease risk.
Most children are born with the components of favorable cardiovascular risk—good blood pressure, lipid, and glucose levels; ideal body weight; and not smoking. If they can hold onto those assets, keep their weight down, and not get diabetes, they can avoid cardiovascular disease later. These researchers wanted to identify early psychosocial factors that safeguard and promote cardiovascular health into adulthood.