British researchers have concluded that happiness, at least by itself, does not extend your life. Here’s a link to the study, published in The Lancet.

As Medscape noted,”In detailed and fully adjusted analysis of data on more than 700,000 women, the team found that there was no link between happiness and the risk for death, whether from all causes, ischemic heart disease, or cancer.”

“Instead, they believe that a person’s risk for mortality increases not because of unhappiness itself but because of the effect that unhappiness has on behavior.”

“Co-author Sir Richard Peto, a professor of medical statistics and epidemiology at …Oxford…said that the findings definitely answer the claim, made in several previous studies by prominent researchers, that unhappiness increases the risk for death.”

He told Medscape: “The claim was that it had a substantial effect on mortality. That claim is wrong. It is scientifically wrong and has been disproved. There is no material direct effect.”