Journal
CURRENT CARDIOLOGY REPORTS
Volume 21, Issue 11, Pages -Publisher
SPRINGER
DOI: 10.1007/s11886-019-1222-9
Keywords
Purpose in life; meaning in life; Psychological well-being; Cardiovascular disease; Health psychology; Epidemiology
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Funding
- NIH [NIA K99AG055696, NHBLI T32HL098048]
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Purpose of Review In this review, we synthesize recent research that has reported associations of a higher sense of purpose in life with reduced risk of developing cardiovascular disease (CVD), and then explore mechanisms that might underlie these associations. Recent Findings Accumulating observational and experimental evidence suggests that having a higher sense of purpose might influence CVD risk through three pathways: (1) enhancement of other psychological and social resources that buffer against the cardiotoxic effects of overwhelming stress; (2) indirect effects through health behaviors; and (3) direct effects on biological pathways. A sense of purpose in life is emerging as an independent risk factor for incident CVD. A key remaining question is whether purpose causally effects CVD risk; in the Future Research Directions section, we focus on work needed to establish causality and provide suggestions for next steps.
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