Social Interaction Affects Lifespan on a Par with Obesity, Smoking, Inactivity

[Guy Hibbins]

I wanted to share this recent meta-analysis of 148 studies which examined measured the frequency of human interaction and tracked a range of health outcomes for an overall average period of 7.5 years.

The researchers found that the average odds ratio for survival for these 148 studies was 1.5, that is people with stronger social ties had a 50 per cent higher chance of survival than those with weaker ones.

If the studies had also yielded data on quality of relationships, the authors suggest the impact of healthy social interaction on odds of survival could be higher than 50 per cent.

For their analysis, the authors pooled data from 148 published longitudinal studies (the sort that track groups of people over time, taking observations now and again), and found that low social interaction had a similar impact on lifespan as being an alcoholic or smoking 15 cigarettes a day. It was also more harmful than physical inactivity, and twice as harmful as obesity, they suggested.

This finding is not new, but it does reinforce the what Dean Ornish has been talking about for a long time (for example in his book "Love and Survival"). That is, man is a social species and human interaction affects our health a lot.

Regards
Guy
See: Low Social Interaction Harms Lifespan on a Par with Obesity, Smoking, Inactivity, http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/196056.php