Personality pathways to mortality: Interleukin-6 links conscientiousness to mortality risk.

Personality is associated consistently with mortality hazards, but the physiological pathways are not yet clear. Immune system dysregulation may be one such pathway due to its role in age-related morbidity and mortality. In this preregistered study, we tested whether interleukin-6 (IL-6) and C-reactive protein (CRP) mediated the associations between personality traits and mortality hazards. The sample included 957 participants (M ± SD = 58.65 ± 11.51 years; range = 35-86 years) from the Midlife in the United States Survey that had 14 years of follow-up. Higher conscientiousness was associated with lower mortality hazards, with each one standard deviation higher conscientiousness associated with a 35% lower mortality risk. IL-6, but not CRP, partially mediated this association, with IL-6 accounting for 18% of this association in the fully adjusted model. While there was initial evidence that the biomarkers mediated both neuroticism and agreeableness and mortality risk, the indirect effects were not significant when controlling for the sociodemographic variables. Taken together, higher conscientiousness may lead to a longer life partially as a result of lower IL-6. This work highlights the importance of biological pathways that link personality to future mortality risk.

Is Healthy Neuroticism Associated with Health Behaviors? A Coordinated Integrative Data Analysis.

Current literature suggests that neuroticism is positively associated with maladaptive life choices, likelihood of disease, and mortality. However, recent research has identified circumstances under which neuroticism is associated with positive outcomes. The current project examined whether "healthy neuroticism", defined as the interaction of neuroticism and conscientiousness, was associated with the following health behaviors: smoking, alcohol consumption, and physical activity. Using a pre-registered multi-study coordinated integrative data analysis (IDA) approach, we investigated whether "healthy neuroticism" predicted the odds of engaging in each of the aforementioned activities. Each study estimated identical models, using the same covariates and data transformations, enabling optimal comparability of results. These results were then meta-analyzed in order to estimate an average (N-weighted) effect and to ascertain the extent of heterogeneity in the effects. Overall, these results suggest that neuroticism alone was not related to health behaviors, while individuals higher in conscientiousness were less likely to be smokers or drinkers, and more likely to engage in physical activity. In terms of the healthy neuroticism interaction of neuroticism and conscientiousness, significant interactions for smoking and physical activity suggest that the association between neuroticism and health behaviors was smaller among those high in conscientiousness. These findings lend credence to the idea that healthy neuroticism may be linked to certain health behaviors and that these effects are generalizable across several heterogeneous samples.

Historical trends in modifiable indicators of cardiovascular health and self-rated health among older adults: Cohort differences over 20 years between the Berlin Aging Study (BASE) and the Berlin Aging Study II (BASE-II).

BACKGROUND: The last decades have seen great advances in the understanding, treatment, and prevention of cardiovascular disease (CVD). Although mortality rates due to CVD have declined significantly in the last decades, the burden of CVD is still high, particularly in older adults. This raises the question whether contemporary populations of older adults are experiencing better or worse objective as well as subjective health than earlier-born cohorts. The aim of this study was to examine differences in modifiable indicators of cardiovascular health (CVH), comparing data obtained 20 years apart in the Berlin Aging Study (BASE, 1990-93) and the Berlin Aging Study II (BASE-II, 2009-2014). METHODS: Serial cross-sectional analysis of 242 propensity-score-matched participants of BASE (born 1907-1922) and BASE-II (born 1925-1942). Body mass index (BMI), blood pressure, total cholesterol, glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c), diet, smoking and physical activity were operationalized according to the "Life's simple 7"(LS7) criteria of the American Heart Association. RESULTS: 121 matched pairs were identified based on age, sex, and education. In the later-born BASE-II sample, the mean LS7 score was significantly higher than in the earlier-born sample (7.8±1.8 vs. 6.4±2.1, p<0.001), indicating better CVH. In detail, diet, physical activity, smoking, cholesterol, and HbA1c were more favorable, whereas blood pressure was significantly higher in individuals from the later-born cohort. BMI did not differ significantly between the two matched samples. Notably, despite better CVH, later-born individuals (BASE-II) reported lower self-rated health, presumably because of higher health expectations. CONCLUSIONS: Overall, cardiovascular health was significantly better in the later-born cohort, but several notable exceptions exist.

Personality Predicts Mortality Risk: An Integrative Data Analysis of 15 International Longitudinal Studies.

This study examined the Big Five personality traits as predictors of mortality risk, and smoking as a mediator of that association. Replication was built into the fabric of our design: we used a Coordinated Analysis with 15 international datasets, representing 44,094 participants. We found that high neuroticism and low conscientiousness, extraversion, and agreeableness were consistent predictors of mortality across studies. Smoking had a small mediating effect for neuroticism. Country and baseline age explained variation in effects: studies with older baseline age showed a pattern of protective effects (HR<1.00) for openness, and U.S. studies showed a pattern of protective effects for extraversion. This study demonstrated coordinated analysis as a powerful approach to enhance replicability and reproducibility, especially for aging-related longitudinal research.

The role of morbidity for proxy-reported well-being in the last year of life.

Late-life well-being often shows steep deteriorations, but the contributing factors are not well understood, in part because data about people's final year of life are scarce. Here, we draw from and test theoretical perspectives that health-related vulnerabilities undermine the experience and skills older adults typically use to maintain well-being (Charles, 2010). To do so, we examined how various morbidity factors shape final-year well-being trajectories. We applied change score models to retrospective proxy-reports from the Socio-Economic Panel (N = 1,776; age at death = 19-101 years; 47% women) and covary for characteristics of the deceased and the bereaved proxy. Terminal decline in proxy-reported well-being amounted to 0.57 SD in less than a year, with larger individual differences at 3 months versus 12 months before death. Declines were reportedly steeper for those in poor health, need of care, not dying from sudden causes of death, dying with cancer, and not dying at home. People who entered their final year with preserved well-being and cognition experienced steeper final-year decrements. Morbidity factors conjointly accounted for less than 20% of variance, indicating that health decrements shape final-year well-being in multifaceted ways, but are not the be-all and the end-all of why well-being declines for some, but not for others. Unique effects of particular morbidity factors were modest, suggesting that prevailing multimorbidity makes the particular conditions in part interchangeable. Extending self-report data typically available until 1 year before death, our findings suggest that proxy-based results move our understanding of terminal well-being decline further. (PsycINFO Database Record

The nature and correlates of change in depressive symptoms with cancer diagnosis: reaction and adaptation.

Major life events trigger change processes in mental health. We examined how depressive symptoms change in conjunction with cancer diagnosis during adulthood and old age, and whether sociodemographic variables, cognitive and health resources, and cancer-specific mortality risks moderate event-related reaction and adaptation. Specifically, we applied multiphase growth models to prospective longitudinal data from 2,848 participants (age at diagnosis: M = 69, SD = 9.91; 46% women) in the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) who reported receiving a cancer diagnosis while enrolled in the study. On average, individuals experienced a significant increase in depressive symptoms within 2 years of cancer diagnosis, still-elevated levels 2 years postdiagnosis, and smaller increases in depressive symptoms postdiagnosis relative to the increases observed prediagnosis. Better memory and lower cancer-specific mortality risks were protective against increases in depressive symptoms within 2 years of diagnosis and were associated with reporting fewer depressive symptoms 2 years postdiagnosis. Findings suggest that diagnosis-related changes in depressive symptoms are typically characterized by a multiphase pattern, but tremendous between-person differences also emerged within each phase. Follow-up analyses comparing a matched group (N = 2,272) who did not experience cancer provided an additional layer of evidence supporting our inferences. Results indicate that, on average, people adapt and adjust to the challenges accompanying a cancer diagnosis, and illustrate the utility of using natural experiments such as major life events as a paradigm for studying developmental change processes.