Strong relationships key to long life, study suggests

http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/Health/20100728/relationships-health-100728/
Strong relationships key to long life, study suggests





Jeannette Zeltzer, 81 and her new boyfriend Max
Rakov, 92, hold hands while sitting on a couch at the assisted living
facility where they live on Saturday, March 8, 2008 in Newton, Mass.
(AP Photo/Greg M. Cooper)



Having great friends, a strong marriage and children who love you may
be just as important to living a long life as something like quitting
smoking, a new study finds.

Researchers from Brigham Young University have found that people who
have lots of close relationships have better odds of living a long life
than those who are lonely.

The study, which appears in the July issue of PLoS Medicine,
found that strong social connections improve our odds of survival by 50
per cent. In fact, the protective effect of strong social relationships
exceeds the influence of other early-death risk factors, such as:

• not exercising
  
• obesity
  

Low social interaction, on the other hand, is equivalent to:

• smoking 15 cigarettes a day
  
• being an alcoholic
  

"The idea that a lack of social relationships is a risk factor for
death is still not widely recognized by health organizations and the
public," write PLoS Medicine editors in a summary of the study.

To reach their findings, BYU psychology professor Julianne
Holt-Lunstad and counseling psychology professor Timothy Smith analyzed
data from 148 previously studies. All were longitudinal studies that
measured frequency of human interaction. Together, these studies
included 308,849 people who were followed for about 7.5 years, on
average.

Holt-Lunstad says there are lots of ways that friends and family can
influence health for the better, ranging from the comfort provided by
physical contact and providing finding meaning in life.

"When someone is connected to a group and feels responsibility for
other people, that sense of purpose and meaning translates to taking
better care of themselves and taking fewer risks," Holt-Lunstad said in a
news release.

Smith said with modern conveniences and technologies, many people might underestimate the value of face-to-face contact.

"We take relationships for granted as humans -- we're like fish that
don't notice the water," Smith said in the release. "That constant
interaction is not only beneficial psychologically but directly to our
physical health."

Holt-Lunstad notes that information on relationship quality was unavailable from most of the studies they examined.

"The data simply show whether they were integrated in a social
network," Holt-Lunstad said. "That means the effects of negative
relationships are lumped in there with the positive ones. They are all
averaged together."

She added that the study method also made it difficult to define
which type of relationships is most protective: family or friends. But
she says the 50 per cent increased odds of survival may actually
underestimate the benefit of healthy relationships.

The authors suggest that policymakers should consider ways to help
people maintain social relationships as a way of keeping the population
healthy.

"Physicians, health professionals, educators, and the public media
take risk factors such as smoking, diet, and exercise seriously; the
data presented here make a compelling case for social relationship
factors to be added to that list," they write.

15 cigarettes a day? Jesus Christ that is a lot.

I'll probably die during my fourties.

Meh, they'll make a pill for it someday.

Do we have a strong relationship, Gov?

 

(Why isn't there an emoticon related to love?)

No.

Gov wrote:No.