With a little help from your friends you can live longerStudy finds being sociable is good for your health, while loneliness is as bad for you as smoking 15 cigarettes a day

   (384)Tweet this (219)Ian Sample, science correspondent guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 27 July 2010 23.22 BST Article history

A close-knit circle of friends can boost health, the study found. Photograph: Channel 4 Picture Publicity

A life of booze, fags and slothfulness may be enough to earn your doctor's disapproval, but there is one last hope: a repeat prescription of mates and good conversation.

A circle of close friends and strong family ties can boost a person's health more than exercise, losing weight or quitting cigarettes and alcohol, psychologists say.

Sociable people seem to reap extra rewards from their relationships by feeling less stressed, taking better care of themselves and having less risky lifestyles than those who are more isolated, they claim.

A review of studies into the impact of relationships on health found that people had a 50% better survival rate if they belonged to a wider social group, be it friends, neighbours, relatives or a mix of these.

The striking impact of social connections on wellbeing has led researchers to call on GPs and health officials to take loneliness as seriously as other health risks, such as alcoholism and smoking.

"We take relationships for granted as humans," said Julianne Holt-Lunstad, a psychologist at Brigham Young University in Utah. "That constant interaction is not only beneficial psychologically but directly to our physical health."

Holt-Lunstad's team reviewed 148 studies that tracked the social interactions and health of 308,849 people over an average of 7.5 years. From these they worked out how death rates varied depending on how sociable a person was.

Being lonely and isolated was as bad for a person's health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day or being an alcoholic. It was as harmful as not exercising and twice as bad for the health as being obese. The study is reported in the journal Plos Medicine.

Holt-Lunstad said friends and family can improve health in numerous ways, from help in tough times to finding meaning in life. "When someone is connected to a group and feels responsibility to other people, that sense of purpose and meaning translates to taking better care of themselves and taking fewer risks."

Holt-Lunstad said there was no clear figure on how many relationships are enough to boost a person's health, but people fared better when they rarely felt lonely and were close to a group of friends, had good family contact and had someone they could rely on and confide in.

Writing in the journal, the authors point out that doctors, health educators and the media take the dangers of smoking, diet and exercise seriously, and urge them to add social relationships to the list.

A report by the Mental Health Foundation in May blamed technology and the pressures of modern life for widespread feelings of loneliness in all age groups across Britain. The survey of more than 2,200 adults found one in 10 people often felt lonely and one in three would like to move closer to their family.

Andrew McCulloch, of the Mental Health Foundation, said the latest study builds on work that links isolation to poor mental and physical health. "Trends such as increasing numbers of people living alone and the advent of new technologies, are changing the way in which we interact and are leading both the young and old to experience loneliness. It is important that individuals and policy-makers take notice of emerging evidence and of the potential health problems associated with loneliness."

多交朋友身體棒

飲酒過(guò)量、工作勞累以及生活散漫都有害健康，但是有一線希望可以讓你的生活倍感輕松：多與朋友談?wù)勑摹?/span>

心理學(xué)家說(shuō)，擁有親密的朋友圈子和緊密的家庭紐帶比運(yùn)動(dòng)、減肥、戒煙戒酒更能提高一個(gè)人的健康狀況。

熱衷于社交的人們更是從朋友圈里受益不少，因?yàn)樗麄儔毫Ω。梢愿玫卣疹欁约?，不像那些被隔離的人們過(guò)著冒險(xiǎn)的生活。

一項(xiàng)有關(guān)社會(huì)關(guān)系對(duì)人的健康的影響的調(diào)查顯示，若一個(gè)人生活在較廣的群體中，不論是朋友、鄰居、家人還是以上都有，那么這個(gè)人會(huì)有高出50%的生存率。

由于人的社會(huì)關(guān)系對(duì)于其健康有顯著影響，研究人員開(kāi)始呼吁普通開(kāi)業(yè)醫(yī)生和衛(wèi)生部官員將“孤獨(dú)”視為同吸煙酗酒一樣嚴(yán)重的健康威脅。

“作為人類，我們交際是理所當(dāng)然的，”朱利安·霍倫斯得，猶他州楊百翰大學(xué)的一位心理學(xué)家說(shuō)到，“這種時(shí)常進(jìn)行的互動(dòng)不僅有利于人們的心理健康，而且對(duì)身體健康發(fā)展有直接的積極作用。”

霍倫斯得的研究團(tuán)隊(duì)歷時(shí)七年半，針對(duì)308,849位人士的社交和健康進(jìn)行了148項(xiàng)研究。他們通過(guò)回顧和復(fù)審，研究出了健康指數(shù)和社交情況之間的關(guān)系。1

孤獨(dú)和隔離感對(duì)身體健康的危害相當(dāng)于一天抽15支煙或者酗酒，其壞處相當(dāng)于不運(yùn)動(dòng)和肥胖。具體研究結(jié)果已在《公共圖書館藥學(xué)雜志》上發(fā)表。

霍倫斯得教授指出，朋友和家人在許多方面提高健康狀況，在困難時(shí)助你一臂之力，甚至幫你找到人生的意義。“當(dāng)一個(gè)人置身某一個(gè)圈子并對(duì)他人感到有責(zé)任感時(shí)，那種目的感和意義會(huì)促使其照顧好自己，不去貿(mào)然行動(dòng)。”

霍倫斯得說(shuō)，雖然還說(shuō)不準(zhǔn)到底要多少朋友才對(duì)人的身體有好處，但是孤獨(dú)感越少越好，所以應(yīng)該多與朋友家人聯(lián)絡(luò)感情，傾吐心聲，互相信賴。

報(bào)告的作者還指出，醫(yī)生，健康教育者和媒體應(yīng)當(dāng)重視吸煙的危害，鼓勵(lì)他們提倡人們適當(dāng)擴(kuò)大交際圈。

在五月，心理健康基金會(huì)發(fā)表了一篇報(bào)告，斥責(zé)了現(xiàn)代科技和生活壓力，因?yàn)樗鼈冊(cè)黾恿擞?guó)各年齡段的人們的孤獨(dú)感。在針對(duì)2200名成人的調(diào)查中，研究者發(fā)現(xiàn)有十分之一的人時(shí)常感到孤獨(dú)，三人之一的人渴望和家人更親密一些。

安德魯·麥克洛奇是該基金會(huì)的一位工作者，他說(shuō)有關(guān)隔離感和心理生理不健康之間聯(lián)系的研究是最新報(bào)告的基礎(chǔ)。“隨著孤獨(dú)的人數(shù)量增加，高新科技的不斷進(jìn)步，人們交往的方式也在日益變化，男女老少都在變得孤獨(dú)。”所以，正視日益顯著的由孤獨(dú)引起的潛在的健康問(wèn)題對(duì)個(gè)人和決策者都很重要。