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Opening Arguments

Born to be sick

For a change of pace, here's a university study that might actually find something useful. Purdue professor Daniel K. Mroczek has received a $2.1 million grant to continue research he's done for 10 years on the link between people's moods and self-discipline and their physical health and longevity:

One of our most exciting findings from the past 10 years is that dynamics of personality, such as changes in chronic worrying, can affect people's mortality risk, and this new study will help us better understand how," said Mroczek, who also has a courtesy appointment in the Department of Psychological Sciences and is affiliated with Purdue's Center on Aging and the Life Course. "There are obvious behaviors that raise one's mortality risk such as smoking and poor diet and exercise, but what are these mechanisms between personality traits and physical health?

"Some of those traits, such as self-discipline, which is known to personality researchers as conscientiousness, seem easy to explain. For example, if you are self-disciplined you are more likely to keep your doctor's appointments and exercise regularly. But we also want to know more about the role of other traits such as neuroticism and open-mindedness."

The stories about this aren't exactly clear on what the professor is studying -- "personality traits," which tend to be deeply ingrained, or "moods," which can be quite transitory. He talks about how changing traits might affect our health, so maybe it's more of the latter than the former. If it's truly personality that's a contributing factor, there isn't all that much use in the knowledge.

For some reason, I'm reminded of one of the best pieces by Richard Aregood, who had a deserved reputation at the Philadelphia Daily News as a genius with short editorials. This is it in its entirety:

"They say only the good die young. Generalissimo Franco was 82. Seems about right."

Posted in: Hoosier lore, Science

Comments

Tim Zank
Thu, 08/11/2011 - 2:46pm

I love that quote from Aregood.

What a waste of money, and it's just the proverial tip of the iceberg. The NIH gave out $10.4 Billion in grants, my guess is most are as worthless as this particular "study".

http://report.nih.gov/recovery/NIH_ARRA_Funding.pdf

But we can't find any room to make cuts.

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