Diligence is a proxy for conscientiousness and characterised by resourceful, disciplined, and organised behaviour
Your personality type may be the key to how you live your life with Type 2 diabetes (T2D). Researchers looked at data from the UK Biobank Study to compare the prognosis of patients living with T2D against traits such as sociability, warmth, diligence, curiosity, and nervousness.
They found that diligent people had the least chances of developing cardiovascular diseases even if they had predisposing conditions like T2D. Diligence was associated with a significantly lower risk of developing any type of cardiovascular disease, even after accounting for potentially influential factors. they were 10% less likely to have a heart attack, 17% less likely to have a stroke caused by a blood clot (ischaemic stroke), 8% less likely to have atrial fibrillation (irregular heart rhythm), and 16% less likely to develop heart failure. People displaying this trait were 7% less likely to experience any kind of cardiovascular event during the tracking period, they reported in the open access journal BMJ Open Diabetes Research & Care.
They tracked the health of 8794 people with type 2 diabetes, who had enrolled in the study between 2006 and 2010, until the end of 2021.
The researchers explained the findings by assessing that diligence is a proxy for conscientiousness and characterised by resourceful, disciplined, and organised behaviour, which is reflected in several traits such as orderliness and industriousness. Previously published studies have suggested that people with this trait are less likely to smoke and are more likely to be physically active, they said.
“Among personality traits, a lower diligence level was significantly associated with a higher risk of cardiovascular diseases, including myocardial infarction [heart attack], ischaemic stroke, atrial fibrillation, and heart failure, in patients with type 2 diabetes,” the researchers wrote.
