A study by the University of Maryland School of Medicine (USA) reveals that watching a comedy and laughing out loud has a very positive effect on vascular function and opposite to that observed after watching movies that cause "mental stress".
Specifically, Michael Miller, professor of Medicine, verified through a series of experiments with 300 subjects that when faced with stressful movies such as Save Private Ryan (1998), blood vessels constrict (vasoconstriction), reducing blood flow. On the contrary, the viewers of a comedy like Algo pasa con Mary (1998) , experience a response of the circulatory system that involves an increase in the diameter of the vessels and the arrival of more blood and oxygen to the organs and tissues . In the experiments, the difference between the effects of both types of tapes implied a variation of 30% to 50% in the diameter of veins and arteries.
"The change that we observed in the vascular endothelium after laughing out loud is similar to the benefit of aerobic exercise or the use of statins", explains the researcher. ? The endothelium is the first line of attack of atherosclerosis or hardening of the arteries, so it is very possible that laughing regularly prevents heart disease ,? concludes Miller, who has released his study at the Congress of the European Society of Cardiology that has just been held in Paris. In other words, the scientist recommends "eating vegetables, exercising, and giggling every day."
