Good friends mean a longer life

Reported by Susan Aldridge, PhD, medical journalist

Research from Australia suggests that having a strong network of friends may increase life span.
We already know that people with strong social or family networks tend to do better if they have heart disease. Now a team at Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia, reports upon the importance of friends to long term health.

As part of the Australian Longitudinal Study of Aging, they asked almost 1,500 people how much personal and phone contact they had with children, relatives, friends and confidants. Close contact with children and relative had little impact on survival rates over the ten years. But a strong network of friends and confidants did improve survival chances over this period. In short, those with the strongest network lived longer than those with few contacts.

The researchers think that maybe having people to talk things over with may help people avoid unhealthy behaviors such as smoking and drinking when faced with life's stresses. Clearly feeling connected to others is an important factor in long-term health.

Source
Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health June 2005 Volume 59 pages 574-579