The following statement comes to you with a disclaimer: The source of this item is not some well-respected university study but comes, rather, from thousands of years of anecdotal reports.

Ready? Here goes: Between the third century B.C. and the year 2013, fewer than 10 people have actually died of laughter.

Not a bad record for a miracle health cure that has helped save thousands of lives over the years.

"When I was in the Army, comedian Bob Hope showed up to entertain our injured soldiers," said Dr. Michael Coats, a board-certified psychiatrist and neurologist at Kootenai Health. "Most of the guys laughed like crazy at his jokes and all of them said afterwards that they felt a lot better.

"Laughter is complicated and can be hard to sort out. However, two parts of the brain - the frontal lobe and the limbic system - seem to be involved in laughter."

Most of us have heard the old saw, "laughter's the best medicine," but it is only in recent decades that scientists have undertaken serious studies to show a physiological basis for this contention.

According to the Mayo Clinic, short-term benefits of laughter include stimulation of the heart, lungs and muscles through the intake of oxygen-rich air. Laughter also increases the amount of feel-good endorphins released by the brain. Laugh a lot and your tension may just ease on down the road.

Over the long haul, the experts say, laughter may actually crank up your immune system. Positive thoughts send out neuropeptides, which work to combat serious illnesses. Some believe laughter relieves pain by encouraging the body to generate its own natural painkillers.

Endorphins are hormones produced in the brain and nervous system. Among their physiological functions, they activate the body's opiate receptors with the happy result of making people feel great.

"They're neurotransmitters we think may be the body's endogenous opiates," Coats said. "If you stimulate their endorphins, people feel better."

So, how do we grab hold of this powerful drug? Often the process starts with the treating physician.

"What is good bedside manner," Coats asks, "if not humor and laughter?"

"I'm a big believer in humor," said Dr. Robert Holman, a board-certified surgeon at Kootenai Surgery Associates. "I tell jokes to almost all my patients. I do that particularly if I'm doing minor surgery and the patient's awake.

"You make it humorous when you can. I think humor helps the family as well as the patient. It shows them that the doctor is human. But most important of all, I think it improves healing.

"There's lots of data supporting the idea that a happy and positive mental attitude can improve healing, reduce the risk of cancer and improve cancer survival rates. People seem to live longer when they're happy. Being sad or depressed is associated with shorter life expectancy. There is good evidence that a happy patient gets fewer diseases and does better with the diseases they do suffer from."

And how do these theories hold up with children?

According to the Centers for Disease Control, if your infant hasn't laughed by the age of 6 months, you should bring this to the attention of your pediatrician. Babies and children - as most people know - normally laugh a whole lot more than grownups.

"On the children's unit of a hospital, there's so much laughter," said Dr. Charlotte Weeda, a pediatrician at Coeur d'Alene Pediatrics. "The nurses laugh, the kids laugh - you can barely start rounds without a kid stopping you to tell a joke.

"Where does laughter come from? I think it comes from looking at life from moment to moment. I think it comes from day to day living.

"Laughter is an art and in that way it is a medicine."

Laughter is an involuntary reaction to either an internal or external stimulus. It's ageless and it knows no international boundaries. There are few, if any, cultures where laughter is not encouraged.

Studies conducted by psychologist Willibald Ruch have shown that people were 30 times more likely to laugh in social settings than when alone, thus supporting the thesis that laughter thrives in friendly situations. A recent experiment showed that even nitrous oxide - laughing gas - produces more giggles in a group setting.

And, according to philosopher John Morreall, the first recorded human laughter may have been produced by someone who'd survived a clear and present danger such as having been pursued by a bear. Or a tiger. Or an arrow. And since the relaxation that follows an outburst of laughter generally slows down the fight-or-flight response, Morreall theorizes that laughter may be a manifestation of trust in one's colleagues or companions.

"Humor defuses situations," Coats said. "It is considered to be a thoroughly sophisticated coping mechanism - there is a universality to humor and its social aspects can be contagious."

And yes, there is a connection between laughter and tears.

"The limbic system is the system for emotion, and the limbic and autonomic nervous systems are integrated together," Coats added. "If you trigger certain parts of the limbic system, you can start stimulating other aspects of the autonomic systems simultaneously."

The result of this merger: laughter and tears.

When it comes to illness and laughter, Weeda said, a lack of laughter on the children's unit would be of great concern to her.

"We all can find happiness or peace through laughter and this is definitely one way that kids cope," she said. "All of them feel more comfortable with people who laugh."

Wedda also talked about a landmark book titled "Anatomy of an Illness," which described a way in which laughter can help heal even the direst of diseases.

Written by Norman Cousins, editor of "The Saturday Review," it relates his successful efforts to heal a progressive form of a rare arthritis through watching funny movies.

"I made the joyous discovery that 10 minutes of genuine belly laughter had an anesthetic effect and would give me at least two hours of pain-free sleep," he said. "I have learned never to underestimate the capacity of the human mind and body to regenerate - even when the prospects seem most wretched."