[HN Gopher] A lifetime of social ties adds up to healthy aging
___________________________________________________________________
A lifetime of social ties adds up to healthy aging
Author : XzetaU8
Score : 159 points
Date : 2025-09-27 06:00 UTC (17 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (news.cornell.edu)
(TXT) w3m dump (news.cornell.edu)
| Luc wrote:
| From reading this it seems to me there is a wide gap between what
| happens at the molecular level and the social level, and they are
| very eager to jump it?
| iberator wrote:
| >The cumulative effect of social advantages across a lifetime
| 2716057 wrote:
| Anecdotally I agree with the message, but the research looks
| weak indeed.
|
| A simple snapshot assessment and some scoring of an
| individual's (entire, self-reported!) social life is too
| simplistic. The measurements would have to be performed
| throughout the life of each participant with sufficiently high
| frequency.
| nicce wrote:
| If someone starts now, we may see results in 50 years?
| psychoslave wrote:
| You're the lucky guy today:
| https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11852352/
| derbOac wrote:
| For what it's worth, the dataset they used does in fact have
| measurements spanning 30 years of adulthood, and similar
| papers from that dataset leveraging the longitudinal data
| have found similar conclusions.
|
| Why it happens is less clear. It could be stress effects, or
| it could be something like people with more social support
| are more likely to get help going in for preventative care
| etc.
| cornholio wrote:
| Social ties correlate with all kinds of beneficial traits,
| outcomes and privileges, in a very complex and bidirectional
| causal relation: sociable people have much better economic and
| career prospects, healthy middle class people have the
| opportunity, time and resources to engage in social activities,
| raising a family is a high energy activity not everybody can
| afford that basically "generates" a substantial web of social
| links, which in turn support the person in their gray years,
| and so on and so forth.
|
| So the finding here is that healthy, wealthy people with a
| support network age just like healthy, wealthy people with a
| support network.
| kixiQu wrote:
| FTFS (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666
| 35462...):
|
| > All models adjusted for demographic and socioeconomic
| variables selected a priori for their potential to confound
| associations between CSA and biological aging indicators.
| Covariates included age (in years), sex (male vs. female),
| race/ethnicity (White, Black, Other), educational attainment
| (12-point ordinal scale), and log-transformed current
| household income (USD). These variables were treated as
| exogenous predictors--assumed to temporally precede both CSA
| and biological outcomes--and were included to block potential
| backdoor paths and minimize bias.
|
| > [...]
|
| > Educational attainment and income reflect stratified access
| to material and psychosocial resources that affect both
| health behavior and biological risk processes (Adler and
| Newman, 2002). Treating these covariates as exogenous
| minimizes bias due to confounding while avoiding over-
| adjustment for potential mediators or introducing collider
| bias (Schisterman et al., 2009).
| currymj wrote:
| from a certain perspective, they've found that if I tell you
| nothing more about a person than their lab test results on some
| biomarkers, you can make a better-than-random educated guess
| about how much social connection they have in their lives.
|
| that's kind of interesting, though very far from the causal
| claims in the university press release.
| amelius wrote:
| Does social media presence also count?
| nenenejej wrote:
| Yes, each post negates one Sunday mass.
| coldtea wrote:
| No, only real social ties, that are there for you practically,
| and can hug you or help you move.
| amelius wrote:
| To the downvoters: have you run a clinical trial?
| rzzzt wrote:
| The journal mentioned in the article (Brain, Behavior and
| Immunity - Health) has a few submissions related to this
| topic, like the one that examines CRP levels and social media
| use: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37224891/
| xg15 wrote:
| Even if your social ties are drinking buddies?
| coldtea wrote:
| Especially then.
|
| People in the Greek or Italian blue zones, would let you take
| away their daily wine drinking with buddies over their 100+
| year old dead body...
| xg15 wrote:
| Hah, true. I guess it also shows the difference between
| social drinking and only hanging on the bottle by yourself.
|
| (Though for the "blue zones", I've read some suspicions that
| the true secret of them is plain old corruption - with some
| of the "supercentenarians" having died long ago and only
| living on in the records, so family, friends or complicit
| buerocrats can collect their pensions. Not sure if this is
| widespread enough to explain the entire effect though)
| coffeefirst wrote:
| Yeah, and to make matters funnier the Seventh Day
| Adventists bought the brand and added themselves to the
| list.
|
| But... there is one thing that seems to hold up. One of
| Buettner claims is that as western ultra processed diets
| came to these enclaves and displaced traditional diets,
| incidence rates of obesity and metabolic disease has
| spiked. That's real.
|
| I bet we could measure a parallel effect on social media
| displacing real social activity wherever it goes.
| xg15 wrote:
| > _But... there is one thing that seems to hold up. One
| of Buettner claims is that as western ultra processed
| diets came to these enclaves and displaced traditional
| diets, incidence rates of obesity and metabolic disease
| has spiked. That's real._
|
| Yeah, no disagreement here. It would be a miracle if a
| food that is designed and produced with the only
| intention to have people eat as much of it as possible
| had _no_ bad consequences. That 's before all the
| biological evidence we have.
|
| The processed food/obesity debate seems similar to me to
| the climate debate. The evidence is well-researched and
| mostly very clear and most of the "debate" around the
| topic is with people who want to muddy the waters because
| they have personal stakes in it in some way - be it
| financial, political or psychological.
| yung234 wrote:
| If you are confident in the quality of birth records from
| rural Sardinia in the 1920s there shouldn't be a problem.
| Tade0 wrote:
| Blue zones correlated stronger with pension fraud than
| lifestyle.
|
| I mean, I've met old but still active Italians - it's not the
| wine that enabled them to stay healthy this long. Italians by
| and large drink less than other Europeans anyway.
| nakedrobot2 wrote:
| Holy crap there is a boat load of spurious correlation here.
|
| Obligatory link https://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations
| ricardobeat wrote:
| Section 2 and 3 of the study[1] go deep into their analysis
| methods, you'll need something a bit more solid than "I've read
| about correlation vs causation once" to counter it.
|
| [1]
| https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S266635462...
| zeofig wrote:
| Is correlated with*
| coldtea wrote:
| Is caused by*
| rzzzt wrote:
| Is causing*
| qmr wrote:
| Does this mean I should encourage my beautiful young wife to join
| the local stitch and bitch?
|
| Obligatory "Correlation doesn't imply causation, but it does
| waggle its eyebrows suggestively and gesture furtively while
| mouthing 'look over there'."
| balamatom wrote:
| "If nobody needs you to be alive you will die faster"
|
| Gee thanks Science, you see now why people prefer Stupidity over
| you?
| coldtea wrote:
| The science part is determining that life situation "showed
| slower epigenetic aging and lower levels of chronic
| inflammation."
| rzzzt wrote:
| What if I just want to spite my enemies with my continued
| existence? They will shake their fist angrily at the sky for
| decades to come.
| vachina wrote:
| Well of course. When you feel you belong you don't stress as
| much.
| card_zero wrote:
| "there were no significant associations with short-term stress
| markers like cortisol or catecholamines."
| HPsquared wrote:
| I wonder what fraction of people today have literally no friends
| (perhaps this could be examined using a questionnaire and points
| system to determine who counts as a real friend vs mere
| acquaintance). The number of people with "zero" must surely be
| rising, especially among the young.
| sigmoid10 wrote:
| I think it's more about the concept of mental isolation than
| some magic hard number of "friends" (whatever way you define
| it). You can have 100 close friends that you regularly talk to
| and hang out with in your free time and still have noone to
| talk to regarding certain issues. Speeking from a military/PTSD
| perspective, a single person who you might not even share that
| much with but who you can talk to about a particularly
| traumatic thing might be worth more than all close friends and
| family in the world. Because they will never understand what
| you really feel like since none of them have experienced it.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| It's a real test of how real a friendship is. There are lots
| of people who enjoy spending time together, talking,
| laughing, remembering the good times, everything's great. But
| start to open up about some real trauma and you will drive
| 90% of them away.
| jancsika wrote:
| That's easy.
|
| Just search instead for 100 duck-sized horses capable of
| tiny acts of kindness and understanding. Much higher
| success rate, much lower variance.
| newsclues wrote:
| As someone in this group, I think there are a surprising number
| of middle aged people without any friends. If you move or lose
| your friend group (or never had one) it seems harder than ever
| to find friends.
| 3pt14159 wrote:
| Have you tried going to a church or a country club or a bar?
| There is also a find friends option on most dating apps. I
| really wish that you'd find at least one friend. If you're in
| Toronto I could meet up with you at a cafe or a pub.
| jermaustin1 wrote:
| I wouldn't call myself middle age (though I'm not THAT far
| off, and past middle age for men in my family), but I'd agree
| and say I could count my total friends on a single finger,
| and I really don't even like him that much... and he knows
| it, and probably feels the same.
|
| Acquaintances, though, I have many. Many of I talk to
| regularly, but would never consider them a friend, because
| well, I know almost nothing personal about them. A former
| boss that I meet up with anytime we are in the same city for
| dinner and drinks, I've known for nearly 20 years, but I
| don't know his wife's name, I know he has 4 kids, and I've
| met them all in passing, but no clue what their names are,
| etc.
|
| Maybe I'm weird, and maybe I'm a bit lonely, and maybe it has
| taken a couple decades to realize I squandered all of my in-
| build friends from childhood, but I'm not sure I'd do it
| differently. I've had a semi-successful life, and most of my
| high school friends still live in their hometown, have dead-
| end manual labor jobs, or have died/disappeared from drug
| use.
|
| Therapy tells me I pre-reject friendship so friendship
| doesn't reject me, and I agree with it, but don't feel like
| changing the pattern.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| > I pre-reject friendship so friendship doesn't reject me
|
| LOL that would describe me perfectly as well I think. I
| have not had "close" friends since I was in my early 20s.
| Then everyone moved away and we all started our separate
| lives.
|
| The next group of friends came along when I had kids, and
| parents naturally became friendly because we would see each
| other at kids activities, sports, etc.
|
| Then the kids grew up, and there was nothing bringing that
| group of people together anymore. I still see and talk to
| one or two of them but it's pretty infrequent.
|
| Now, the idea of maintaining a real, close friendship just
| sounds like too much work. I'm happy enough just living my
| life on my terms.
|
| Most friendships are just formed of the people we see
| regularly due to circumstance. They may be pleasant but
| they are not deep, and they will fall apart as soon as
| circumstances change.
| trashface wrote:
| That was true for me, I moved 15 years ago and my friend
| group went to zero practically overnight, never recovered.
| Now middle aged and don't even have many acquaintances. I do,
| however, have a few somewhat problematic family members and
| relatives, more in that category than I would like.
|
| Its not great but also not a huge problem - I believe now I
| have some amount of Schizotypal personality spectrum, and
| have all my life, though I never admit that to most people
| IRL since the label freaks people out.
| tayo42 wrote:
| Having a kid caused me to lose my friend group. Everyone else
| is childless and don't understand the difficulty of making
| certain plans or don't care I guess. Though people tell me
| I'll make new ones soon through kid activities.
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| Friends come from having opportunities for interaction with
| people. People take that for granted though early in life
| when they are essentially forced into these situations
| through schooling, but after completing that don't give
| themselves such opportunities any longer. If you find
| yourself without friends in middle age, evaluate your own
| time. Are there opportunities in your life to speak to
| others? Taking up hobbies where you have a chance of
| interacting with others is a great way to make friends.
|
| In other words, friends won't drop into your lap. You have to
| go where fish are actually biting and cast out your line.
| throaway1988 wrote:
| a lot of people have friends but we only "interact" via a
| screen!
| layer8 wrote:
| It also depends on what exactly you count as "real friends". If
| you set the standard just a little bit high, many people only
| have their family, or not even that. And you can have friends
| and still feel alone.
| em-bee wrote:
| real friends are people who don't abandon you when you do
| something they don't like. the problem is, until that happens
| you can't tell the difference.
| pojzon wrote:
| My only real ,,friend" is my wife.
|
| Over years I lost contact to all the ppl I considered friends.
|
| I dont have time to nurture long distance relationships.
|
| After studies we all moved away 200-300km from each other.
|
| I have a lot of ,,pals" or ,,gaming friends". But those ppl
| wont show up 4am at night to pick you up from a street fight.
|
| I'm missing ,,meaningful" connections. Its easy to find ppl who
| dont care.
| dolebirchwood wrote:
| To be fair, I'm not sure I'd want to be friends with someone
| who gets into street fights at 4:00 a.m. My cut-off would be
| midnight.
| Herring wrote:
| Yeah well look who's president. America has clearly decided not
| to invest in its social fabric.
|
| There are multiple deep factors contributing to this. Car-centric
| lifestyle, few third places, low work-life balance, high and
| increasing inequality, underdeveloped social safety net,
| employer-tied social benefits, etc all tied together with
| American individualism. If we want prosocial, community-oriented
| behavior, we have to actually prioritize it.
| newsclues wrote:
| Imagine blaming the president for not having friends lol
| datavirtue wrote:
| In this case, it works.
| watwut wrote:
| His arguments is that people who voted for Trump made
| decision to destroy "social fabric". Which is true, it was
| vote with the hope harm will be done to liberals, trans, low
| level goverment workers they hate.
|
| It is not argument about loss of personal friendship, but
| about values those Americans have. And those values do not
| have space for social fabric other then domination over
| "other".
| Herring wrote:
| > _It is not argument about loss of personal friendship,
| but about values those Americans have._
|
| They're quite linked, eg after 1954 Brown vs Board of
| Education, many cities closed all kinds of meeting grounds
| like pools, libraries, schools, parks, playgrounds etc to
| prevent desegregation. Loss of such places contributes to
| loneliness. Hurting yourself to hurt others is a well-
| established political practice in America.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diversity_in_swimming#Desegre
| g...
| keiferski wrote:
| All of those things were true thirty years ago (car-centric
| society, inequality, etc.) and yet loneliness wasn't as bad.
|
| I think technology is almost certainly more to blame here.
| Endless online entertainment, social media, dating apps, etc.
| have all erased in-person social lives.
| Herring wrote:
| Lots of Western European countries have phones too. It took
| time to get where we are, eg for rents/mortgages/college to
| outpace wages enough to seriously impact work-life balance.
| mrtesthah wrote:
| The essay "Bowling Alone: America's Declining Social Capital"
| which touched on many of the GP poster's points, came out in
| 1995. This has been happening for a long time. The pandemic
| just made it a lot worse.
| HPsquared wrote:
| If anything, I'd say young people drive less than previous
| generations.
| anal_reactor wrote:
| I blame the fact that nowadays it's possible to live your
| entire life comfortably in solitude. People used to form
| relationships not out of pleasure, but out of necessity - it
| was impossible to farm land without family, and even in a city
| it was difficult to get shit done without at least some
| connections with neighbors and such. Once this necessity
| disappeared because most services started to function
| perfectly, so did social connections.
| forgotmypass12 wrote:
| The whole borrow a cup of sugar was real for my parents
| growing up. Now? You can get it delivered in less than an
| hour.
| TheDong wrote:
| > Covariates. All models adjusted for ... age, sex,
| race/ethnicity, educational attainment, and log-transformed
| current household income.
|
| Let's look at something else which wasn't controlled for at all:
| doing physical activities.
|
| People who, for example, run every week or bike every week often
| do so because they have a group of friends who also does that,
| and doing such a physical activity also builds friendships better
| than not doing such activities.
|
| Perhaps exercising is both correlated with health and with
| building groups of friends.
|
| Or perhaps exercising is correlated with being attractive, and
| being attractive is correlated with building social connections.
|
| ... I guess what I'm trying to say here is that this study shows
| correlation only, and there are so many confounding factors I
| consider it pretty tenuous.
| ricardobeat wrote:
| That could be a factor, though 1) the study found no
| correlation with cortisol levels which is affected by exercise,
| and 2) income and education are highly correlated with physical
| activity levels already, so wouldn't put too much hope on that.
| seydor wrote:
| I like to remind myself that, in biology, all the arrows are two-
| way
| api wrote:
| What I sometimes wonder about these studies is whether we have
| established causation. Is it that socializing makes people
| healthier or do healthy people socialize more?
| Insanity wrote:
| Humans are social animals, and if I'm being pretty reductionist
| this paper states "being social is healthy for social animals.
| Being healthy means longer life spans".
|
| So not too much of a surprise there.
|
| Edit: still valuable to do research even to confirm whatever
| seems to follow logically. Not trying to discredit that!
| card_zero wrote:
| I am neither social nor an animal. What exactly is the
| mechanism of action, what is it about going to church or
| whatever that decreases this nasty interleukin-6? And how can
| carried out most minimally, or made into pills?
| sylos wrote:
| Unless you're a robot, you are a social animal
| jvanderbot wrote:
| I find it fun that alcohol increases DNA methylation, but we find
| now that having a rich social life decreases it. If you need any
| other reason to see the societal fitness of societal lubricants.
| I've cut way back into "maybe one once in a while" territory, but
| I also have regular social interactions with exactly two toddlers
| and one wife and that's about it.
|
| I've never been to AA, but I'm told it's the cues that get you,
| and I do admit the memories of beers + guitar hero or other such
| nonsense from old days is exactly what I want every time I open a
| beer.
|
| It's like that old rat experiment, where they gave them cocaine
| or heroine laced water + regular water, and they always preferred
| the the drugs, until there was a rich social life / environment,
| at which point they rarely did.
|
| Socializing is powerful stuff if you can find enough time to
| build up enough trust to just have a heap of fun for a few hours.
| I swear a side-splitting laugh fest adds years to your life. When
| is the last time you laughed so hard with friends you couldn't
| breathe?
| anal_reactor wrote:
| I wish I had friends, but I also wish I had a Ferrari, the
| latter one might be reachable within my lifetime if I work hard
| for it.
|
| Wait, with a budget of EUR100 000 I could actually get some
| second-hand old shitty Ferrari. That's... surprisingly
| affordable. I mean buying this shit right now would be highly
| irresponsible, but I can see myself potentially buying one in
| far future.
|
| I just checked Lamborghini Murcielago, the dream sportscar of
| my childhood, and it goes for like EUR300 000. Hmmm... that's
| like, a lot of money for what is basically a toy, but if I
| really really really wanted that, it would be achievable within
| my lifetime without completely ruining me financially.
|
| https://suchen.mobile.de/fahrzeuge/details.html?id=432670758...
|
| Look at this shit, it's beautiful. EUR260 000. Not now and not
| tomorrow, but totally achievable as a lifetime goal.
|
| What a day to be alive. Having a luxury sportscar is more
| realistic than having friends. Send immaterial help.
| HPsquared wrote:
| Maybe you can make some friends in the quest for the
| Lamborghini. Or maybe you could form a group who collectively
| buy it?
| anal_reactor wrote:
| It used to be fashionable to collectively buy boats and
| vacation homes and other shit. Turns out, having a shared
| expensive thing quickly leads to disagreements.
| bravetraveler wrote:
| > Turns out, having a shared expensive thing quickly
| leads to disagreements.
|
| In this case, I'm guessing the first minor bit of body
| damage _[gravel, whatever]_ or consumable replacements
| _[tires, brakes, etc]_. Ignoring the financial pressure
| /means aspect, preferences are what they are. Tire
| pressure, cleanliness, or what-have-you.
|
| Personally, I wouldn't buy a Lamborghini without breaking
| it/rebuilding several times over. Fancy car, want to see
| what it _really_ has. Other people? Baby it to no end
| because it 's so precious. They got a date tonight.
|
| All this to say: an old rustbox _[or several]_ is
| probably the better group project. What little I knew of
| my Dad: demo derby, sounded great.
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| Buying a share is still very common in the personal
| aircraft world
| bix6 wrote:
| If you buy the Murci you'll be invited to every cars and
| coffee so lots of potential friends there!
| anal_reactor wrote:
| Shit I'll do when I'm 70 and the stock market works in my
| favor.
| decafninja wrote:
| Both my father and father in law retired recently.
| They've done financially pretty well in life - not super
| rich, but they can live loose a bit.
|
| Both were recently in the market for new cars. As a car
| enthusiast, I told them to YOLO and buy something like a
| 911.
|
| But no, they got a staid huge BMW sedan and a staid huge
| Benz SUV respectively, despite neither of them ever
| likely to use the back seats at all.
| sigfubar wrote:
| I get a good chuckle out of these articles. "Here's another
| thing I lack that was supposed to make me live longer!"
|
| Speaking of living longer: I've had my fill of fast cars
| already, but how about an airplane? I watched some guys fly
| Piper Cubs in Alaska. That looked fun as hell.
| https://youtu.be/XXuIA_b35fs
|
| Perhaps I'll buy one of those. They aren't so expensive.
| sfdlkj3jk342a wrote:
| How old are you? I found I grew out of an interest in cars
| after my early 20's.
| andrepd wrote:
| I've definitely become a fuck-cars car enthusiast in my
| late 20s, if that makes sense lol
|
| In that I still love (classic) cars, I still love (sim)
| racing, at the same time that I absolutely despise car-
| centric infrastructure and urbanism as one of the great
| catastrophes of the 20th century.
| anal_reactor wrote:
| I'm getting more and more interested in cars actually. But
| I don't care about specs, it's more about appreciation of
| the looks. Some designs can be beautiful.
| HPsquared wrote:
| I never really do the full belly-laugh thing with friends or
| family. 90% of the time I'm alone in a room, seeing something
| funny on a screen.
| throaway1988 wrote:
| that old rat experiment is considered bunkum now
| sejje wrote:
| Why? By whom?
| andrewl wrote:
| The rat experiment is usually referred to as Rat Park:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_Park
|
| There are _criticisms_ of it, some of which are in the
| criticisms section of the Wikipedia article, and look to be
| valid.
|
| I never liked when people talked about debunking an
| experiment that was honestly done and just needed
| refutation or at least correction. If researchers publish
| research that was honestly done and then later found to
| have statistical flaws, or that is disproved with a larger
| sample size or whatever, I wouldn't say it had been
| _debunked_. I'd say it was refuted or corrected or refined
| or whatever. If it was a "research" study where the group
| publishing it _knew_ is was junk designed to promote an
| agenda or sell a product, then the term debunked is fair.
| jvanderbot wrote:
| It's all fair. All studies are flawed but some are
| useful. As a paradigm shift for addiction I could see it
| being less than a home run. As a statement about
| happiness it's all well and good if for no other reason
| than an analogy and potential positive finding.
| teaearlgraycold wrote:
| > When is the last time you laughed so hard with friends you
| couldn't breathe?
|
| 2 weeks ago in Oaxaca with some friends. We were at dinner and
| one (a guy) mentioned the Mormon purity defying practice of
| soaking which sparked confusion from the other (a girl). So he
| explained it in Mandarin so the others in the restaurant
| wouldn't understand. It's not a language I speak but watching
| her face told me everything I needed to know.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Last time I laughed like that with friends I was probably 18
| or 19. That was 40 years ago.
| freedomben wrote:
| Damn dude, I (truly) feel for you. It's increasingly rare
| for me too, but it's so healing. If you're comfortable
| sharing, whereabouts do you live? What are your political
| inclinations? (The latter I ask because it radically
| influences what you find funny, not because it matters
| otherwise).
|
| With no context, I highly recommend finding a comedy club
| near you and having a few drinks. It might take several
| attempts though so don't give up
| freedomben wrote:
| Former Mormon here, not familiar with "Mormon purity defying
| practice of soaking". Some explanation is needed
| isamuel wrote:
| It's not the cues that get you. That is an idea promoted
| largely by treatment centers and the rehab industry, who need
| to be able to plausibly claim they are teaching their customers
| how to avoid relapse. I'm a recovered alcoholic and I can
| assure you, my "cue" for drinking was being alive and awake at
| the same time.
|
| Your reaction is a sane and normal one: you remember a good
| time, and you have some inkling to recreate it. Certainly. And
| to most people that makes sense. But alcoholics are different
| from most people, and their understanding that is an essential
| first step to recovery.
| jvanderbot wrote:
| That makes sense! I didn't mean to sweep the experience into
| a few pithy words. I'm past the edit window, but I"m glad
| you're pointing this out.
| isamuel wrote:
| Totally understand. With any luck, you and I have played
| two sides of a dialogue that'll be read by someone else,
| for whom it might be quite useful. For that I thank you.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Most folks aren't alcoholics. Maybe they did some beer
| shotgunning in college, but stopped. Heck, I've known folks
| that came out of combat, hooked on opiates, and quit.
|
| If you are one, though, there's nothing gonna keep you from the
| drink, except total abstinence, and some kind of structure (AA,
| NA, Church, Martial Arts, etc.).
|
| I'm a recovering addict (over 45 years), and participate in
| Fellowship. Gives me _tremendous_ socialization.
| bossyTeacher wrote:
| >some kind of structure
|
| Don't you just mean social activities? You don't need to
| accept metaphysical dogmas or engage in scheduled physical
| combat with other people to socialize.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Hey, thanks for redefining "structure." I guess it needed
| that.
|
| Sure, go ahead and do whatever you think works. If you're
| an alcoholic, it either will, or won't, work; with
| [rewards|consequences] to follow.
|
| If you're not, it probably won't hurt. In fact, it could
| definitely enrich your life.
| bossyTeacher wrote:
| I highly doubt there was ever any doubt about the
| benefits of socialization. Science just confirmed what
| used to be commonly held beliefs
| majormajor wrote:
| Alcohol reduces inhibition but the real trick to lower your
| social inhibition is just practice.
|
| It's not really complex, it's like anything else you'd study -
| mindful, focused practice; pay attention to details; iterate.
| RagnarD wrote:
| Aging is systematic accumulating damage.
|
| "Healthy systemic accumulated damage" is therefore a more honest
| way to put it, exposing it as completely ridiculous.
|
| Thank goodness that longevity efforts have now become well
| established biotech and pharma goals around the world.
| notmyjob wrote:
| Probably why women outlive men. Also wars, and hypergamy.
| tsoukase wrote:
| They need to cancel out the whole human civilisation as a
| confounding factor in order to conclude something useful. Linking
| genetic and social factors is something I cannot decide to laugh
| or amaze.
| Etheryte wrote:
| I don't really see what you mean? It's well known and widely
| accepted that environmental factors influence gene expression.
| Social factors are a very large part of our environment.
| constantcrying wrote:
| Do scientists just randomly publish obvious nonsense now?
|
| The causation is obviously in the other direction: _Healthy
| people socialize more._
|
| Proposing the inverted causation, without even examining the
| alternative is ridiculous. This is just trash science.
|
| Having a correlational result and using it to pretend that one
| has to cause the other with absolutely no mechanism is not
| science, it is reading tea leaves.
|
| A healthy person has more opportunities and more abilities to
| engage in social activities. The less healthy a person becomes
| the rarer those opportunities become. Basically every single
| health condition, especially the most common ones like obesity,
| make it harder for people to engage in social activity.
|
| The alternative explanation is pretty simple and does not require
| some magical mechanism whereby social interactions are somehow
| causing your body to age slower.
| crossbody wrote:
| Exactly right. I doubt we can get to causation unless we
| conduct proper long term experiment instead of just looking at
| correlations and assuming causation goes one way.
|
| The study says social bonds are associated with lower
| inflammation. It's well documented that inflammation causes
| anxiety and depression. How does this affect one's social
| activity? Negatively, the mechanism is very clear - you don't
| socialize if you are depressed and anxious. And somehow they
| assume the reverse casual relationship without explaining the
| mechanism for it.
| m101 wrote:
| Introverts probably socialise less because they find it more
| tiresome or find fewer opportunities they would enjoy. Would
| they fall under "unhealthy"?
| AfterHIA wrote:
| I often feel like that my inflammatory illness is related to the
| fact that I lost all my friends in my 20's and came from a
| dysfunctional family.
|
| The upside is that I've been suicidal since I was 15 so if Johnny
| Reaper comes in the form of loneliness cancer I'll have been done
| a subtle favor.
|
| Also it's just an aside but God isn't real.
| exe34 wrote:
| Living life alone makes your life shorter, but it sucks enough
| that it'll feel a lot longer anyway, so it balances out!
| sejje wrote:
| I'm no longer living my life alone, but I greatly cherish the
| time that I did.
|
| I find being alone wonderful.
| AfterHIA wrote:
| "Life is very long when you're lonely."
|
| -Steven Patrick Morrissey
| wiether wrote:
| Being alone and being lonely are not the same thing.
| exe34 wrote:
| BINGO!
|
| (this always gets brought up every single time, like a
| mantra that people have to keep saying to convince
| themselves. So it's on my bingo card.)
| AfterHIA wrote:
| https://vimeo.com/384844632
|
| If you're going to talk shit don't end your sentence with
| a conceptual preposition. You're making us all look bad."
|
| #AFVP
| unfitted2545 wrote:
| That's really interesting because I also started getting my
| inflammatory illness after losing all my friends.
| AfterHIA wrote:
| I'm not razzing you but if you need a pal I'm here for you.
| These are trying times.
| grishka wrote:
| There's no such thing as "healthy aging". Aging is deterioration.
| It's unhealthy by its very nature.
| dag11 wrote:
| I think the clear implication of the phrase "healthy aging" is
| a lower-than-average rate of deterioration with respect to
| increasing years on earth.
|
| It's like, you actually can describe one of two burgers as
| "healthier" even though they're both unhealthy. One is just
| less harmful. It's a valid use of language.
| wonderwonder wrote:
| This is my main concern. At 46 i'm in excellent physical
| condition, do well financially and am incredibly lucky to have
| the wife and kids that I do. I really want to live for another
| 200 years.
|
| I just have absolutely zero friends or interactions with people
| who aren't my wife and kids. Haven't for probably 15 years now. I
| work remotely and 99% of the people I work with are offshore so
| very little overlap in work times. So the occasional teams
| message on a group channel is it. No friends or even
| acquaintances. I occasionally find myself craving the little
| notification icon on X to let me know some stranger liked my
| post. I recognize that this is not optimal.
|
| The gym is essentially my hobby but max interaction is the
| occasional fist bump or head nod. I spend 90 minutes there 6 days
| a week.
|
| Its to the point where other people aren't even real to me
| anymore, I can go literally months without a real life
| conversation.
|
| Not complaining but it does worry me from the longevity aspect
| monocularvision wrote:
| Definitely tougher to make and maintain friend relationships at
| this age. Most of my group comes from church but think about
| other social settings or clubs that might provide opportunities
| to make connections.
|
| The other suggestion is to not worry about who initiates what.
| I make it a habit of reaching out to people and don't mind if I
| am the one doing so the majority of the time. It is so easy,
| for me at least, to fall into the trap of keeping track to make
| sure the people "care enough".
|
| Hope that helps and hopefully my entirely unasked for advice
| wasn't inappropriate. Only responding because I am a similar
| age and struggled with the same.
| wonderwonder wrote:
| Appreciate the advice. Definitely something I need to make
| happen if its going to happen.
| decafninja wrote:
| In my 30s, church became my only source of friends and
| acquaintances. However even then, I only made two "true"
| friends I still meet up with outside of church. Three, if I
| count my wife who I consider my best friend :)
|
| The rest seemed like friends while we attended the same
| church, but quickly vanished as soon as we left (the
| particular church, not the faith). Maybe more of those
| relationships could have been nurtured to last if given more
| effort, but as both my wife and I are introverts, it wasn't
| easy.
|
| I'm in my early 40s now. We still attend church, but we find
| the whole social aspect of it draining. We attend
| worship...then go home.
| adastra22 wrote:
| "healthy aging" is an oxymoron.
| pengaru wrote:
| My friends are objectively bad for my health vs. how well I take
| care of myself without their influences.
|
| What I suspect is common WRT these studies is lonely people
| become self-destructive, reaching for stuff like alcohol and/or
| comfort eating, i.e. harmful substitutes for relationships they
| miss.
|
| But I don't really have those issues. I can be super content
| spending most time solitary with regular impersonal interactions
| at cafes and grocery stores. Just having a modicum of peaceful
| sharing of space with others tops up my socializing needs, beyond
| that it's fast into diminishing returns territory.
|
| - extremely introverted person who never developed a dependence
| on others for self-worth and/or happiness
| pedalpete wrote:
| I wish these studies would dive deeper into the mechanisms that
| prompt healthy aging, rather than just saying "social ties".
|
| The few that come to mind are laughter, stress, exercise, and
| cognitive engagement.
|
| It might be interesting to see if diet changes as a result of
| social ties as well. We can make an educated guess that stronger
| social ties means less time eating alone.
|
| Surely it isn't just the social ties themselves.
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