A new study found that lots of laughter helps prevent heart disease Researchers: People who laugh more, are healthier
. People who laugh more, tend to suffer less from heart disease. This is what a new study published yesterday by the Preventive Cardiology Institute at the University of Maryland in Baltimore reveals. "The old cliché that laughter is good for health turns out to be true when it comes to protecting the heart," said the director of the institute, Dr. Michael Miller, at a press conference, adding that this is the first study to prove that there is a link between laughter and heart disease.
Miller and his colleagues said at a meeting of the American Heart Association that in their opinion
Laughter releases chemicals that relax blood vessels. "The intention is not only
To laugh 'ha ha ha'", said Miller, "but to laugh loud and healthy".
The researchers interviewed 150 patients who had had heart attacks in the past or had to
undergo opening of blocked arteries. They compared the answers they received with those of
150 people of the same age who do not suffer from heart disease.
The questionnaires tried to test the reaction to amusing everyday situations -
For example, when you arrive at a party and find that someone else is wearing the same outfit
to yours Or, as Miller asked: “If a good friend of yours, who you haven't seen in a long time
If he woke you up in the middle of the night, how would you react?" According to him, "We found out
that people who have had heart disease are more likely to laugh in such social situations
decreases by about 40-45%
Now Miller hopes that in the future laughter will be used as a therapeutic tool. "we
Still don't know if forcing yourself to laugh when you're angry is a method
useful, but it is possible that there are effective and practical ways by which they can
People reduce the discomfort or hostility they feel, improve the
Their response to humor, and to increase the amount of laughter in their lives," he said.
According to him, "There is no reason why we cannot train our laughter muscles, as
that we do in other gymnastic exercises. Second, we may be able to find out
Ways to take ourselves less seriously."
Now the institute's researchers are busy searching for the cause of the phenomenon. One of the hypotheses
It is that the act of laughing releases chemicals that affect the blood vessels, perhaps
As in the case of the dentists' "laughing gas" - a chemical that is related
to nitric oxide, which is known to dilate blood vessels. Now there is
Doctors considering using this chemical in drugs given to heart patients.
"Wouldn't it be ironic if it turns out that laughing gas protects the heart?" he asked
Miller.
Miller further noted that many studies show that anger and hostility cause cells
that line the blood vessels to release chemicals that cause them to constrict. such a study
Published yesterday in the journal of the "American College of Cardiology", Nuta
confirm this finding. Dr. Peter Angerer from the University of Munich in Germany
discovered that lonely and angry people tend to develop heart disease. "We proved that
Low social support, and to a lesser extent, extraverted rage… are
Components associated with rapid development (of heart disease) within two years of
Follow-up", Angerer said.
The researchers examined the arteries of 150 heart patients, and asked them questions
whose purpose is to measure the level of social support, as well as expressions of anger and hostility.
Two years later, the patients were examined again to see if the condition of their arteries
The blocked got worse. According to Engrer's team of researchers, there is a possibility
It is high that there will be a worsening of the condition of the arteries of patients who express their anger
were tall, and the social support they received was low. None was registered
Effect on the level of hostility.
{Appeared in Haaretz newspaper, 16/11/2000{
The knowledge website was until 2002 part of the IOL portal from the Haaretz group
