Diabetes: How optimism may influence your risk
New research suggests that optimism may have a protective effect against type 2 diabetes in postmenopausal women.
A range of factors can raise the risk of developing type 2 diabetes.
Some of these factors — such as diet, physical activity, and weight — can be modified. Others, including ethnicity, genes, and age, cannot.
Some recent studies have suggested that a person's psychology can also influence their diabetes risk.
Depressive symptoms, for example, correlate strongly with a higher risk of incident diabetes, and researchers have suggested that depression be "included among risk factors that indicate intensified screening for diabetes."
Moreover, other studies have suggested that "self-reported cynical hostility" may also raise the risk of diabetes, as well as exacerbate symptoms of metabolic syndrome in postmenopausal women.
However, fewer studies have looked at the protective effect that some personality traits may have on diabetes risk in this group.
A new paper, published in Menopause, the journal of the North American Menopause Society (NAMS), aims to fill this gap in research.
Scientists have examined data from the Women's Health Initiative (WHI) to see whether positive traits such as optimism can lower the risk of type 2 diabetes in postmenopausal women. WHI is a long-term observational study aiming to prevent a range of chronic conditions in women.
Juhua Luo, Ph.D., from the School of Public Health at Indiana University in Bloomington is the first author of the new paper.
