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Are happy people healthier because they participate in wholesome activities or does depression somehow contribute biochemically to stroke? This study doesn’t begin to answer any of these questions, but it is something to think about.

It’s difficult to say that a bad attitude can give you a stroke but one study of almost 2,500 persons 65 and older has researchers wondering, according to the Reuters news agency.

They found that the more positive outlook a person had the lower was the risk of stroke. There was a 41% drop in risk for men and an 18% drop in risk for women, Reuters reported.

The study was conducted by Dr. Glenn Ostir of the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston. The researchers found that the risk of stroke increased among patients who showed signs of negative affect or mood when interviewed.

Participants were asked if they “felt lonely” or “had crying spells” as a measure of their mood. Dr. Ostir’s research was published in the March, 2008 issue of Psychosomatic Medicine.

Stroke is the number one cause of long-term disability in the elderly and the third highest cause of death. Widely recognized risk factors for stroke include obesity, chronic illness, smoking and alcohol abuse.

It may take years to determine if these findings are significant. The study does raise a number of questions such as the efficacy of treating depression in the elderly in order to reduce the incidence of stroke. An association between mood and stroke does not imply causality, only that the two entities occur together.