Study links sense of humor, survival

Do you laugh today?

　　Laugh and the world laughs with you. Even better, you might live longer, a Norwegian researcher reports.

　　Adults who have a sense of humor outlive those who don't find life funny, and the survival edge is particularly large for people with cancer, says Sven Svebak of the medical school at Norwegian University of Science and Technology.

　　He released his study of about 54,000 Norwegians, tracked for seven years, at the American Psychosomatic Society meeting here.

　　At the start, patients filled out questionnaires on how easily they found humor in real-life situations and how important a humorous perspective was.

　　The greater a role humor played in their lives, the greater their chances of surviving the seven years, Svebak says. Adults who scored in the top one-quarter for humor appreciation were 35% more likely to be alive than those in the bottom quarter, he says.

　　In a subgroup of 2,015 who had a cancer diagnosis at the start, a great sense of humor cut someone's chances of death by about 70% compared with adults with a poor sense of humor, Svebak says.

　　笑一笑，世界与你同笑。但据挪威研究人员称，笑的功效甚至不止于此，笑还可以延年益寿。

　　挪威科技大学医学院的斯文·斯维白克说，有幽默感的成年人比认为生活无趣的人寿命长，这一点在癌症患者身上尤为明显。

　　斯文对约54000个挪威人进行了长达七年的跟踪调查，他在美国身心研究学会在挪威召开的会议上公布了这一调查结果。

　　研究人员先让病人们填写调查问卷，其中包括在现实生活中发现幽默的容易程度以及幽默视角的重要性等问题。

　　斯维白克说，病人的幽默感越强，他在七年之内活下来的可能性越大。幽默感得分位居前四分之一的病人生存下来的几率比排在后四分之一的病人高35%。

　　据斯维白克介绍，对一个共有2015名癌症病人的小组的研究表明，幽默感较强的人死亡的几率比没什么幽默感的人低70%左右。