New research suggests that having a strong network of friends helps people live longer. Older people with better social networks with friends were less likely to die over a 10-year follow-up period than older people with poorer friends networks. But in what may come as a surprising finding to older people who rely on their children and other relatives, having a large network of relatives was not associated with longer life. Of course, that is not to say that social networks with children and other relatives are not important in many other ways. Previous studies have shown that elderly people who are connected with lots of people tend to live longer lives. However, few studies have examined whether different types of relationships - with friends, partners, children and other relatives - have different effects on longevity. Researchers from the Flinders University in Adelaide, Australia, examined the relationship between various types of social networks and longevity in a group of almost 1,500 Australians who were at least 70 years old. Volunteers answered questions about their social networks and then were followed for 10 years. They took into account several factors that could have influenced how long a person lived, including sex, age, health and smoking status. It was found that older people who reported better social networks of friends were more likely to be alive at the end of the study than people with fewer friends. Similarly, people who reported strong networks of confidants - people with whom participants shared a close, confiding relationship - tended to live longer. But relationships with children and relatives did not have an effect on survival in the study. The researchers were not sure why friends seemed to help people live longer. They speculate that friends may influence people to engage in more healthy behavior, such as not smoking or not drinking too much. Another possibility, according to the researchers, is that friends may help boost people's self-esteem. It is possible that having a strong network of friends may have beneficial physical effects, the reverse of the negative physical effect stress can have. As for the lack of a relationship between longer life and family relationships, they suggested that it may reflect the tendency of people to rely on family members when their health begins to decline. Whatever the reason for the beneficial effects of friends, the researchers believed that strategies to promote the establishment and maintenance of these relationships in later life warrant additional attention.
Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health,
June 2005