Predicting Heart Disease with Twitter

Your Twitter posts may help accurately predict your risk of heart disease according to a recent study.

Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania found that negative tweets, which include cursing, use of the word “hate” and comments that make you sound bored or tired, had a strong correlation to those at risk for heart disease. Their findings were published in Psychological Science.

“At times, negative tweets or posts can be even worse for the reader because of the shock factor,” says Evelina Grayver, MD, director of the coronary care unit at North Shore University Hospital. “This negativity puts both the reader and the writer at risk for early onset coronary heart disease or heart attacks.”

Stay positive by being active, surrounding yourself with positive people, and by eating healthy, she suggests.

“There’s no proven literature out there on how many negative tweets it takes to feel the health effects; it’s really more about the cumulative effects that will start to take a toll on the body,” she says.

Dr. Grayver also mentions that the current national risk predictors for heart disease are very limited; if Twitter can help identify risk factors in a young population it would be a huge win from a preventative cardiac standpoint.

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