Older people with a consistently positive affect and attitude toward life have a delay in onset of physical frailty compared with less positive peers, according to an article in the September issue of Psychology and Aging.

In the current study, American researchers looked for possible links between positive emotions and onset of frailty in 1,558 initially non-frail older Mexican Americans living in five southwestern states. Investigators followed the participants for seven years and assessed frailty by measuring the participants’ weight loss, exhaustion, walking speed and grip strength. Positive affect was measured during the study period by asking the participants how often in the last week “I felt that I was just as good as other people,” “I felt hopeful about the future,” “I was happy,” and “I enjoyed life.”

The overall incidence of frailty increased almost eight percent during the seven-year follow-up period, but those who scored high on positive affect were significantly less likely to become frail. Each unit increase in baseline positive affect score was associated with a three percent decreased risk of frailty after adjusting for relevant risk factors.

Exploration into possible mechanisms was beyond the scope of the current study, but the researchers speculate that positive emotions may directly affect health via chemical and neural responses involved in maintaining homeostatic balance. The authors hypothesized that there may also be an indirect process in which positive emotions affect health by increasing a person’s intellectual, physical, psychological and social resources.