- ANN ARBOR, Mich. (UPI)
-- Older Americans who are generous with their time and help can reduce
their risk of dying prematurely by 60 percent, a new study released Wednesday
suggests.
-
- The study, to be published in a future issue of the journal
Psychology Science, found people who reported providing no help to others
were more than twice as likely to die sooner than people who gave of themselves.
-
- Psychologist Stephanie Brown, the study's author, said
previous studies have credited receiving support from another individual
with prolonging life. The new research contradicts that finding, Brown
said. It is the giving, not the receiving, that increases longevity.
-
- "Making a contribution to the lives of other people
may help to extend our own lives," said Brown, of the University of
Michigan Institute for Social Research.
-
- The study, which was funded in part by the National Institutes
of Health, examined data on 423 older couples who were selected randomly
from a community-based sample of people first interviewed in 1987, then
followed for five years to see how they coped with the inevitable changes
of later life.
-
- In the first set of interviews, the husbands and wives
were asked a series of questions about whether they provided any practical
support to friends, neighbors or relatives, including help with housework,
childcare, errands or transportation.
-
- They also were asked how much they could count on help
from friends or family members if they needed it and about giving and receiving
emotional support to or from their spouses, including being willing to
listen a spouse who needs to talk.
-
- During the five-year period of the study, 134 people
died.
-
- In her analysis of the link between mortality and giving
and receiving help, Brown adjusted the data for a variety of factors, including
age, gender and physical and emotional health. Overall, Brown found 75
percent of men and 72 percent of women reported providing some help without
pay to friends, relatives or neighbors in the year before they were surveyed.
-
- Receiving help from others was not linked to a reduced
risk of mortality, however.
-
- "These findings suggest that it isn't what we get
from relationships that makes contact with others so beneficial. It's what
we give," Brown said.
-
- The results, she noted, are consistent with the possibility
the benefits of social contact are shaped, in part, by the evolutionary
advantages of helping others.
-
- "It is well-established that social contact has
powerful health benefits," Brown said. "My work demonstrated
that the benefits of social contact, and of receiving support, were entirely
accounted for by giving. I consider this work to be important because our
findings are in opposition to decades of research that attribute the benefits
of social contact to the support that is received from others."
-
- A similar study by another U-M researcher, Liang Krause
Bennet, published last year in the journal Psychology and Aging, reached
similar conclusions.
-
- Dr. Dean Ornish, who wrote "Love & Survival:
The Scientific Basis for the Healing Power of Intimacy," said longevity
prospects increase dramatically with the number of close relationships
a person has.
-
- "It has been found that people who volunteer to
help others also greatly increase their health and survival," Ornish
wrote in a newsletter. "Investigators have found that activities involving
regular volunteer work were among the most powerful predictors of reduced
mortality rates."
-
- --
-
- (Reported by Marcella S. Kreiter, UPI Correspondent,
in Chicago)
-
- Copyright © 2002 United Press International
- <http://www.upi.com/print.cfm?StoryID=20021113-035804-9040r>View
printer-friendly version
- Copyright © 2002 United Press International. All
rights reserved.
|
