Fostering Care: ‘Social Ties Boost Survival by 50 Percent’
Scientific American has an article “Social Ties Boost Survival by 50 Percent.” Here is an excerpt:
Overall, social support increases survival by some 50 percent, concluded the authors behind a new meta-analysis.
The benefit of friends, family and even colleagues turns out to be just as good for long-term survival as giving up a 15-cigarette-a-day smoking habit. And by the study’s numbers, interpersonal social networks are more crucial to physical health than exercising or beating obesity.
“I don’t think a lot of people recognize that our relationships can have a physical impact as well as emotional,” says Julianne Holt-Lunstad, an associate psychology professor at Brigham Young University and co-author of the new study, published online July 27 in PLoS Medicine.
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