Your money and your life: Why your credit score can kill you

Your credit score doesn’t just affect your chances for getting a loan. It can also be a sign that your heart health is slipping.

Data from a study called the Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study in New Zealand shows that when your credit score slides, your chances of cardiovascular difficulties increase. The researchers believe that this reflects the fact that having self-control, being able to plan ahead and possessing perseverance are characteristics that are connected to both a better financial outlook and improved health.

“What it comes down to is that people who don’t take care of their money don’t take care of their health,” says researcher Terrie Moffitt, who now teaches psychology and neuroscience at Duke University.

The study includes data on the mental and physical health of more than 1,000 people from New Zealand who have been tracked from birth to age 38.

The researchers discovered that about 20 percent of the link between heart health and credit scores was connected to the behavior, attitudes and aptitudes displayed by the people in the study when they were less than 10 years old.

“We’re showing that these things take root early in life,” says researcher Salomon Israel.

The study ranked the heart health of participants using what is known as the Framingham cardiovascular risk score. People with better credit scores had healthier hearts. They found that the more education people had along with more sophisticated intellectual abilities were characteristics associated with both higher credit scores and better cardiovascular wellness.

“Our findings suggest that life insurance companies that acquire an applicant’s credit score are also indirectly acquiring information about that applicant’s educational attainment, intelligence and personality, right back to childhood,” the scientists conclude.

Carl Lowe

By Carl Lowe

has written about health, fitness and nutrition for a wide range of publications including Prevention Magazine, Self Magazine and Time-Life Books. The author of more than a dozen books, he has been gluten-free since 2007.

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