Why the study?
Do psychosocial variables and changes in somatic risk factors predict the occurrence of lung cancer, cardiac infarct, apoplexy, and diabetes mellitus?
Do psychosocial variables and changes in somatic risk factors predict the occurrence of lung cancer, cardiac infarct, apoplexy, and diabetes mellitus?
Psychosocial variables and longitudinal changes in somatic risk factors are strong predictors of major clinical diseases including cardiac infarct and stroke.
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May support psychosocial assessment in risk prediction; leaves open causal effects and need for interventional trials.
In a prospective study, 1,353 persons were administered a psychosocial questionnaire. At the same time, smoking, weight, and blood pressure were measured. 3 years later these variables were measured again. Another 7 years later the whole group was checked for clinical diagnoses that had occurred in the meantime. The main results were: (1) the 3-year changes of the somatic risk factors were almost as good predictors as their values themselves; (2) psychosocial variables were considerably better predictors of the diseases, and they also predicted the changes of the somatic risk factors about as well as the diseases.
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Grossarth-Maticek et al. (2010) studied this question.
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