Diabetics – Laugh Your Way to Better Health

Ever since Normal Collins’ book “Anatomy of an Illness” there has been speculation about how mirthful laughter can indeed produce healthy changes in some measures of health. Loma Linda scientists decided to do something about it, and did a study of the effects of exposure to humor on diabetics with high blood pressure and high blood lipids. They presented their findings to the American Physiological Society.

Twenty high-risk diabetics were divided into 2 groups – ‘Control’ and ‘Laughter’. All the participants were started on standard meds for diabetes (anti-diabetic drugs, antihypertensives, and a statin). The Laughter group looked at self-selected humorous videos for 30 minutes daily, in addition to taking the standard diabetic meds. Blood tests were done for the stress hormones (epinephrine and norepinephrine), high density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C, the ‘good’ cholesterol), C-reactive protein (CRP, a marker of inflammation in the body), and other inflammatory markers (TNF-alpha, IFN-gamma, and IL-6).

From the second month onwards the stress hormones were significantly decreased, the HDL-C was increased, and the inflammatory markers were decreased in the Laughter group compared with the Controls. After one year, the beneficial effects in the Laughter group were maintained or increased.

The changes associated with the deliberate introduction of humor into the lives of these diabetics should be expected to lower the risk of cardiovascular disease. These results will certainly lead to larger, longer-term studies that will measure the frequency of cardiovascular events (heart attack, stroke, cardiac death) to substantiate the benefits of a good laugh, every day.