Your Credit Rating Might Predict How Likely It Is You'll Have A Heart Attack

A new study has found that your credit rating may be able to predict how likely you are to have a heart attack or stroke. The multi-decade study, which was published last week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, was performed by Duke University psychologists who looked at the cholesterol, blood pressure, diabetes status and smoking habits of over 1,000 New Zealanders -- and then compared their findings to those people’s credit ratings. The study found that people with lower credit scores were more likely to be at risk for cardiovascular disease. That, the study said, is because the same factors that account for better credit scores -- the researchers focused on self-control, educational attainment and cognitive abilities -- also account for better health. “For example, being able to regulate your impulses lets you say no to that second helping of dessert as well as to buying something you can’t afford,” said Salomon Israel, one of the study’s authors and a postdoctoral fellow in psychology and neuroscience at Duke. The study also found that those traits begin to develop in the first ten years of a person’s life. The researchers have been following the study participants' development since birth. "Despite the passage of nearly three decades, childhood factors were all significantly correlated with their corresponding adult measures," the study concluded. In order to measure self-control, researchers relied on reports from study ...
Source: Healthy Living - The Huffington Post - Category: Consumer Health News Source Type: news