Stressful life linked to earlier death

Men with persistently moderate or high levels of stressful events over several years have a 50 percent higher mortality rate than others, U.S. researchers say. Lead author Carolyn Aldwin of Oregon State University and colleagues used longitudinal data surveying almost 1,000 middle-class and working-class men from 1985 to 2003. All were picked because they had good health when they first signed up in the 1960s. "Being a teetotaler and a smoker were risk factors for mortality," Aldwin said in a statement. "So perhaps trying to keep your major stress events to a minimum, being married and having a glass of wine every night is the secret to a long life." Aldwin said previous studies examined stress only at one time point, while this study documented patterns of stress during a number of years. "Most studies look at typical stress events that are geared at younger people, such as graduation, losing a job, having your first child," Aldwin said. "I modified the stress measure to reflect the kinds of stress that we know impacts us more as we age, and even we were surprised at how strong the correlation between stress trajectories and mortality was." The study, published in the Journal of Aging Research, found those in the low-stress group experienced an average of two or fewer major life events in a year, compared with an average of three for the moderate group and as many as six for the high stress group.