Sullivan passes along a study on stress related hormone levels is homosexual and heterosexual people:
Perhaps most significant, though, was the secondary finding that they hadn’t even been searching for: In their study, lesbian, gay and bisexual individuals all tended to have lower stress levels and a smaller chance of depressive symptoms if they’d come out to friends and family than those who’d kept their sexual orientation a secret. “Coming out,” the authors write, “may no longer be a matter of popular debate, but of public health.”
His qualifier: “the study’s limited sample size means that these results can’t be interpreted as definitive, and further study is needed to confirm that they hold true on a widespread level.”
I suppose that makes sense, though I would add a second, though related qualifier. Closeted individuals, by definition, don’t tell people about their sexual orientation. That includes researchers. It is impossible to control for a variable like closeted homosexuality, as you have to rely on the subjects self identification. The heterosexual control group may or may not have contained closeted individuals. We can’t be sure, by definition. Given that the incidence of homosexuality in the general population is very low, a large enough sample size could correct for this, as the study’s author alluded to.
520 Chestnut 
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