Laughter May Be Good for the Heart
(Washington, Reuters Health, 3/7/05)

Two separate studies demonstrate that positive emotions may promote health. In the first, Dr. Michael Miller of the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore, and team, had 20 healthy subjects view two films: one funny, the other stressful. The researchers found that blood flow increased in 19 of the 20 volunteers when they laughed at funny parts of the movie and fell in 14 of the 20 after stressful scenes. Miller noted that the degree of change in the endothelium (the lining of the blood vessels), which facilitates increased flow, appeared similar to the vascular benefit received from aerobic exercise. The second study found that depression raises the risk of dying from heart failure. After Dr Wei Jiang of Duke University in North Carolina, and associates, had tested 1,005 heart failure patients for depression, the investigators found that the risk of subsequent death during the study was 44% higher for subjects undergoing mild depression. These findings suggest that depression itself may raise the risk of death and/or depressed patients may be more prone to making unhealthy lifestyle choices.

(Meeting of the American College of Cardiology in Orlando, FL, March 2005)