Staying Fit
A steady paycheck may do more than pad your bank account. New research shows it also could protect your health.
In a report published Wednesday in the journal JAMA Cardiology, researchers examined data from nearly 9,000 middle-aged adults enrolled in a long-term study on heart health and categorized the participants based on whether their household income dropped by more than 50 percent, increased by more than 50 percent or remained relatively unchanged over a six-year period.
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They found that participants who experienced an income drop had a 17 percent higher risk of heart attack, stroke or other cardiovascular disease (CVD) incident over a 17-year follow-up period, compared with those whose incomes remained the same. In contrast, the group that saw a rise in income had a 14 percent lower risk of CVD over the same 17-year timeframe.
Stephen Wang, a medical student at Dartmouth's Geisel School of Medicine and coauthor of the study, said the reasons for the association between income and CVD risk remain unknown, but there are a number of potential explanations. For example, studies show that financial distress can affect eating habits, as well as alcohol and tobacco use. A decline in income might also result in loss of health insurance.
"Lower incomes can also increase stress or depression, which are both associated with cardiovascular disease,” Wang said. “Alternatively, if someone increases their income, then the opposite may happen: Their stress may decrease, they may be able to eat more healthy foods, etc.”
Wang also noted that the participants who became sick during the period of the study also may have been more likely to fall into poverty as a result. To minimize how this possibility may have affected the study, researchers excluded participants with prevalent CVD, cancer or chronic lung disease, and adjusted for health behaviors and biomarkers associated with CVD (cholesterol, diabetes, blood pressure, etc.).
Wang said the study results show that diseases shouldn't be analyzed in a purely clinical context.
