Optimism is associated with exceptional longevity in 2 epidemiologic cohorts of men and women
[COMPLETE ARTICLE READ IN FULL AT SOURCE, the publisher's own PDF at pnas.org, including both tables with all three model specifications, the Methods, the Discussion and the reference list] Lee, L. O., James, P., Zevon, E. S., Kim, E. S., Trudel-Fitzgerald, C., Spiro, A. III, Grodstein, F., & Kubzansky, L. D. (2019). 'Optimism is associated with exceptional longevity in 2 epidemiologic cohorts of men and women.' Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 116(37), 18357-18362. doi:10.1073/pnas.1900712116. THE PAPER EVERY CIRCULATED FIGURE COMES FROM. Nurses' Health Study: 69,744 women analysed, optimism measured in 2004 on the revised Life Orientation Test, alpha 0.79, mortality tracked to 1 June 2014, so ten years; mean baseline age 69.9; 1,400 women who died in the first two years excluded, in the authors' words to mitigate the possibility that imminent health decline affected their reports of optimism, plus 288 with under two years of data; 13 per cent died during follow-up. Veterans Affairs Normative Aging Study: 1,429 men, optimism measured in 1986 on the Revised Optimism-Pessimism Scale derived from 263 Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 items, Kuder-Richardson 20 of 0.88, mortality to 31 December 2016, so thirty years; mean baseline age 61.6; 71 per cent died. TWO DIFFERENT INSTRUMENTS IN THE TWO COHORTS, correlated only moderately in prior work, so this is a replication across cohorts and not across one measure. Accelerated failure time models, reported as percentage difference in expected survival time. THREE MODELS, AND ALL THREE MUST BE NAMED OR THE FINDING IS MISREPORTED. Women, highest against lowest quartile: demographics 18.6 per cent (15.4 to 21.8); plus health conditions and depression 14.9 (11.9 to 18.0); plus health behaviours 8.7 (5.8 to 11.6). Men, highest against lowest quintile: 14.0 (4.5 to 24.4); 10.9 (1.3 to 21.5); 9.8 (0.3 to 20.3). Odds of reaching 85, women, model 2: 1.5 (1.2 to 1.7), falling to 1.2 (1.0 to 1.5) in model 3; men: 1.7 (1.1 to 2.6) falling to 1.6 (1.0 to 2.4). The nurses' covariates include the participant's own education, her husband's education and her father's occupation when she was sixteen, which is an adjustment for childhood social class and marital socio-economic position. Their own calibration: in the same model, never having been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes was associated with a 17.0 per cent longer life span for women and never having had a myocardial infarction with 18.0 per cent. Sensitivity analyses excluding everyone with major chronic disease at baseline left results comparable with fewer reaching significance; adding the Berkman-Syme Social Network Index somewhat attenuated but left the associations significant. Their own sentence on the central ambiguity: 'While it is possible that health behaviors are confounders in this association, such behaviors may also lie on the pathway linking optimism to longevity.' Optimism is reported as about 25 per cent heritable, and the men's five-year score correlation was 0.87. Their own generalisability limit: both cohorts were mostly white and of higher socio-economic status than the general population. Declared conflict of interest recorded for completeness and not for insinuation: a co-author has worked as a consultant with AARP and United Health Group.
[COMPLETE ARTICLE READ IN FULL AT SOURCE, the publisher's own PDF at pnas.org, including both tables with all three model specifications, the Methods, the Discussion and the reference list] Lee, L. O., James, P., Zevon, E. S., Kim, E. S., Trudel-Fitzgerald, C., Spiro, A. III, Grodstein, F., & Kubzansky, L. D. (2019). 'Optimism is associated with exceptional longevity in 2 epidemiologic cohorts of men and women.' Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 116(37), 18357-18362. doi:10.1073/pnas.1900712116. THE PAPER EVERY CIRCULATED FIGURE COMES FROM. Nurses' Health Study: 69,744 women analysed, optimism measured in 2004 on the revised Life Orientation Test, alpha 0.79, mortality tracked to 1 June 2014, so ten years; mean baseline age 69.9; 1,400 women who died in the first two years excluded, in the authors' words to mitigate the possibility that imminent health decline affected their reports of optimism, plus 288 with under two years of data; 13 per cent died during follow-up. Veterans Affairs Normative Aging Study: 1,429 men, optimism measured in 1986 on the Revised Optimism-Pessimism Scale derived from 263 Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 items, Kuder-Richardson 20 of 0.88, mortality to 31 December 2016, so thirty years; mean baseline age 61.6; 71 per cent died. TWO DIFFERENT INSTRUMENTS IN THE TWO COHORTS, correlated only moderately in prior work, so this is a replication across cohorts and not across one measure. Accelerated failure time models, reported as percentage difference in expected survival time. THREE MODELS, AND ALL THREE MUST BE NAMED OR THE FINDING IS MISREPORTED. Women, highest against lowest quartile: demographics 18.6 per cent (15.4 to 21.8); plus health conditions and depression 14.9 (11.9 to 18.0); plus health behaviours 8.7 (5.8 to 11.6). Men, highest against lowest quintile: 14.0 (4.5 to 24.4); 10.9 (1.3 to 21.5); 9.8 (0.3 to 20.3). Odds of reaching 85, women, model 2: 1.5 (1.2 to 1.7), falling to 1.2 (1.0 to 1.5) in model 3; men: 1.7 (1.1 to 2.6) falling to 1.6 (1.0 to 2.4). The nurses' covariates include the participant's own education, her husband's education and her father's occupation when she was sixteen, which is an adjustment for childhood social class and marital socio-economic position. Their own calibration: in the same model, never having been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes was associated with a 17.0 per cent longer life span for women and never having had a myocardial infarction with 18.0 per cent. Sensitivity analyses excluding everyone with major chronic disease at baseline left results comparable with fewer reaching significance; adding the Berkman-Syme Social Network Index somewhat attenuated but left the associations significant. Their own sentence on the central ambiguity: 'While it is possible that health behaviors are confounders in this association, such behaviors may also lie on the pathway linking optimism to longevity.' Optimism is reported as about 25 per cent heritable, and the men's five-year score correlation was 0.87. Their own generalisability limit: both cohorts were mostly white and of higher socio-economic status than the general population. Declared conflict of interest recorded for completeness and not for insinuation: a co-author has worked as a consultant with AARP and United Health Group.
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Lee, L. O., James, P., Zevon, E. S., Kim, E. S., Trudel-Fitzgerald, C., Spiro, A. III, Grodstein, F., & Kubzansky, L. D. (2019). Optimism is associated with exceptional longevity in 2 epidemiologic cohorts of men and women. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 116(37), 18357-18362. doi:10.1073/pnas.1900712116