Show How Your Personality Determines Your Health By Paula Dranov accurately can doctors predict of their patients are candidates for serious disease and early death? Do tiwse people have something in common that might provide a due to their chances of reaching old age In reasonably good health? Some Intriguing new evidence suggests that temperament may be a telling Indication of how Bkaly we are to develop serious illness by middle age Specifically It shows that the moodier and more “difficult" you arc the greater your chances of encountering major health problems rela- How tively early in life That conclusion was the surprising result of a study at Johns Hopkins Medical School designed to determine which — tf any — characteristics present In young people can be used as clues to their future health The young people in question were medical students at Johns Hopkins who submitted to comprehensive physical and psychological examinations while they 30-ye- Paulo Dranoe frequently contribute on health to FAMILY WEEKLY artteki were In school and agreed to supply the researchers with an annual update on their health after graduation Some 1337 students participated between 1948 and 1964 At the outset one of the researchers psychiatrist Barbara Bets used the psychological Information on the first group of students to classify them by one of three temperament types First there were the “afchas" steady and cautious individuals who tend to depend on their own resources Then there were the “betas” a Kvcfier goup — bright clever quick to adapt to new situations articulate and undemanding The third group the “gammas" were the moody ones — while they were often brilliant they were also confused and generally more difficult and complex individuals than the other two types It turned out to be the gammas who suffered the moet medical problems over the years By the time they had reached their 77 percent of the gammas In the class of ’48 had suffered a major Ukwss compared to 51 percent of the alphas and only 25 percent of the betas Just what Is temperament and what differentiates an alpha from a beta or gamma? Dr Betz and her colleague Dr mid-fifti- Caroline B Thomas director of the study sec temperament as a tendency we have from birth that remains with us throughout life They say it is a reflection of neurological and hormonal activity differing from individual to individual It influences the way we approach life how we behave and react and how deeply we arc affected by the major and minor crises we encounter Even Infants fall into one of the three categories Drs Thomas and Betz used But despite all the past studies of temperament done for a variety of reasons — most of them to evaluate mental rather than physical health — it never had been taken into consideration as a possfcle predictor of whether or not it makes an individual more susceptible to disease categorizing the medical students by temperament types Dr Betz looked at a wide variety of habits and interests She wanted to know for Instance how well the students slept whether or not their weight fluctuated how they dealt with nervous tension what their hobbies and social athletic and church interests were how close they were to their famines and how open they were in discussing themselves The gammas It turned out had few athletic or social interests were cautious in discussing themselves and often vacillated between overconfidence and under-confiden- So surprising was the link between temperament and the health problems of the class of '48 that the researchers decided to classify 127 other participants over the course of the study using the criteria Dr Betz had applied at the outset And again the highest rates of illness — and early deaths — were among the moody gammas AH told 13 of them had died — five from cancer six from heart attacks one from problems relating to mental illness and another by suicide None of the betas had died but two of the alphas had succumbed to cancer and another to a heart attack Looking at the disease rate the researchers found that 12 of the gammas had contracted major cancers 12 had high blood pressure and 11 had suffered heart attacks In comparison the rate of serious Illness was much lower among the carefree betas — eight had high blood pressure four had developed cancer and one suffered from mental illness The alphas fared slightly worse than the betas but better than the gammas Six had high blood pressure four had cancer and three had heart attacks What does all this mean in terms of everyday living? To guard against illness should people who are moody concentrate on changing their personalities? 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