Laughter is the best medicine

　　A good laugh may be good for the heart

　　A team maryland medical researchers found that peop le with heart disease were 40 percent less likely to la ugh in humorous situations than those with healthy hear ts.

　　"The old saying that laughter is the best medicine definitely appears to be true when it comes to protecti ng your heart," said michael miller, director of the ce nter for preventative cardiology at the university of m aryland medical genter.

　　It is uncertain, however, whether humor helps preve nt heart problems or if people with heart problems tend to lose their sense of humor.

　　"That question would be more interesting, but is wo uld also be much harder roberston, a vanderbilt univers ity cardiologist and president of the american heart as sociation.

　　The research was to be presented at a heart associa tion conference in new orleans.

　　The study of 300 people---half of whom had historie s is heart problems-used questionnaires(调查问卷) to gauge how healthy people and those with heart disease differe nt in their responses to situations where humor was exp ected.

　　The people with heart discase were much less likely to even recognize humor. They also laughed less, even i n positive situations, and generally displayed more ang er and hostility than people with healthy hearts.

　　Roberston said the maryland research fits into an a rea of growing interest among cardiologists(心脏病专家): the psychological side of heart disease. Most of that resea rch, however, has examined the effects of mental stress on the human heart or the tendency of heart patients to develop depression after surgery.

　　Very few studies have pondered(考虑) the reverse ques ton: whether humor, or a pronounced absence of stress, can reduce a person's risk of heart disease.

　　Robertson called the maryland researchers' line of quesitoning," a very interesting" approach.

　　"I think what this suggest is that we have to take our patients' psychological states more seriously," she said.