SAN ANTONIO (Reuters Health) - Being satisfied with your family and your financial situation leads to more than happiness for a man--it translates into a lower risk of death from stroke, Israeli researchers reported here Friday at the American Stroke Association's 27th International Stroke Conference.

Dr. David Tanne of Sheba Medical Center in Tel Aviv and colleagues studied 23 years of data collected from the Israeli Ischemic Heart Disease Project, which includes more than 10,000 male civil servants and municipal employees aged 40 and older.

When they enrolled in the study, the men completed questionnaires that asked about their satisfaction with family life and how financially secure they felt.

During follow-up, there were 364 deaths from stroke. Among those who rated their family difficulties as serious, the rate of stroke was 4.5%. Stroke death rates were 3.5% for those who reported no family difficulties. "Risk of stroke death decreased with increasing family satisfaction," Tanne said.

The stroke death rate was 4.7% for men who reported serious financial difficulties and 3.7% for those who felt they had no financial problems.

Tanne and colleagues then adjusted for factors that could also affect stroke risk, such as other medical problems, smoking and age, as well as the self-perceived severity of financial difficulties. They found that after adjustment, men reporting severe family dissatisfaction faced a 41% increased risk of death from stroke.

"Satisfaction at (the start of the study) correlated with what happened during follow-up," Tanne said. He added that "it was not their objective financial status but how they perceived their difficulties" that influenced risk of stroke.

"A happy family life decreases risk of stroke," he added. "Be happy, don't worry."

Reference Source 89

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