What you tweet tells so much more than your personality. It can also be a good indication of your heart health, one study reveals.
There already more than a million Twitter users all around the globe, making it one of the most influential social media platforms. In fact, some experts consider it as live TV since Internet users, whether they are officially on Twitter or not, can get real-time updates about any significant event in a matter of seconds.
It also doesn’t come as a surprise that researchers are using it as a tool for their work. In a brand-new study, however, the website has become the subject, especially in determining a person’s risk of cardiovascular disease.
A group of health experts at University of Pennsylvania pored over 135 million tweets for a year, between 2009 and 2010. These tweets were chosen randomly. They then took note of the messages users shared and compared data from Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The researchers didn’t have any access to the personal medical records of these Twitter users.
Upon analysis, they found out that there’s a correlation between mortality rates and the sources (place of origin) of these tweets.
According to Johannes Eichstaedt, the lead researcher and a PhD student in the university, places whose residents often post Twitter messages associated with fatigue, hospitalization, and hatred are more likely to experience a higher mortality rate, especially due to a cardiovascular problem.
Conversely, places whose people tend to have a more positive outlook, based on their tweets, may experience a lower death rate due to cardiovascular disease.
Many factors can affect a person’s risk level to cardiovascular disease. For example, it’s more common among older people and that men are more susceptible to it than women.
However, a person’s emotion, particularly negative, can also has an impact to overall cardiovascular health.