Dr. Gabor Maté on health: what the evidence says · JRE #1869
SUBJECT: HEALTH
Not a true/false call. Every claim is logged with its sources; read the exhibits below.
Now there was a study out of Massachusetts, I think, which I quote in the book. I think 2,000 women were followed over 10 years. Those who were happily married and didn't express their emotions were four times as likely to die
What the evidence says 01 / RECORD
No study matching Mate's description (a Massachusetts study of 2,000 women followed for 10 years, finding a 4x mortality risk) could be located. The closest identifiable research on emotion suppression and mortality is Chapman et al. (2013, Journal of Psychosomatic Research), which used a nationally representative US sample of 729 adults of both sexes (the 2008 General Social Survey-National Death Index cohort), followed for 12 years, and found emotion suppression was associated with hazard ratios of 1.35 for all-cause mortality and up to 1.70 for cancer mortality, well below the 4x figure Mate cites. Current evidence supports a modest association between emotional suppression and increased mortality risk, but nothing near the magnitude or specificity Mate describes.