Health & Lifestyle

Stress is basically a reaction of our organism to an external factor to which we cannot respond adequately.
In the recent years, due to the development of certain external factors, the number of people suffering from stress is rising every day.

This study is one of the firsts to examine closely the link of stress over a higher number of aging people who suffered major stress factors such as the loss of husband/ wife, an illness etc. Basically, this study looks at how stress affects the population in the process of aging and the link it has to the mortality rates.

The group for research was comprised of 1000 men belonging to middle and working class. They have been followed from 1985 to 2003.

The group was split into three parts: one with a low stress level who experienced maximum two experiences in a year causing stress, one with a moderate level of stress having upt to three major events and one with the highest level of stress which had approximately six events.

The researchers concluded that the groups with moderate and high levels of stress had a similar mortality risk indicating that when having to deal with more than two events per year, a level of stress on the long term, even a moderate one, can lead to a higher mortality risk.

This research is considered different from the previous ones that tried to find a link between the level of stress and mortality risks, due to the fact that it was conducted over several years and it had the chance to draw its conclusions after men experienced serious losses and had to face important events in their lives.

The research team that worked on this project was led by Carolyn Aldwin who is a professor of human development at Oregon State University. The study was published in the “Journal of Aging Research” and was funded by the National Institute of Aging and received an award from the United States Department of Veterans Affairs.