{"id":223408,"date":"2017-04-11T16:25:18","date_gmt":"2017-04-11T20:25:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/?p=223408"},"modified":"2024-01-11T13:51:53","modified_gmt":"2024-01-11T18:51:53","slug":"over-nearly-80-years-harvard-study-has-been-showing-how-to-live-a-healthy-and-happy-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/story\/2017\/04\/over-nearly-80-years-harvard-study-has-been-showing-how-to-live-a-healthy-and-happy-life\/","title":{"rendered":"Good genes are nice, but joy is better"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\t\n\t
\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\tHealth\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\n\t\t

\n\t\tGood genes are nice, but joy is better\t<\/h1>\n\n\t\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\n
\"Aging\"<\/figure>\n\n\t
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\n\t\tLiz Mineo\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t

\n\t\t\tHarvard Staff Writer\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/address>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t

\n\t\t\tHarvard study, almost 80 years old, has proved that embracing community helps us live longer, and be happier\t\t<\/h2>\n\t\t\n<\/header>\n\n\n\n
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\n\t\t\t\n\t\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\n\t\t\tPart of the<\/span>\n\t\t\tTackling Issues of Aging<\/span>\n\t\t\t series<\/span>\n\t\t<\/a>\n\t\n\t<\/h2>\t\t\t\t\t

\n\t\t\t\tA series on how Harvard researchers are tackling the problematic issues of aging.\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\n\n\n

W<\/span>hen scientists began tracking the health of 268 Harvard sophomores in 1938 during the Great Depression, they hoped the longitudinal study would reveal clues to leading healthy and happy lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They got more than they wanted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After following the surviving Crimson men for nearly 80 years as part of the Harvard Study of Adult Development<\/a>, one of the world\u2019s longest studies of adult life, researchers have collected a cornucopia of data on their physical and mental health.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of the original Harvard cohort recruited as part of the Grant Study, only 19 are still alive, all in their mid-90s. Among the original recruits were eventual President John F. Kennedy and longtime Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee. (Women weren\u2019t in the original study because the College was still all male.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition, scientists eventually expanded their research to include the men\u2019s offspring, who now number 1,300 and are in their 50s and 60s, to find out how early-life experiences affect health and aging over time. Some participants went on to become successful businessmen, doctors, lawyers, and others ended up as schizophrenics or alcoholics, but not on inevitable tracks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cLoneliness kills. It\u2019s as powerful as smoking or alcoholism.\u201d<\/p>\nRobert Waldinger, psychiatrist, Massachusetts General Hospital<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

During the intervening decades, the control groups have expanded. In the 1970s, 456 Boston inner-city residents were enlisted as part of the Glueck Study, and 40 of them are still alive. More than a decade ago, researchers began including wives in the Grant and Glueck studies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the years, researchers have studied the participants\u2019 health trajectories and their broader lives, including their triumphs and failures in careers and marriage, and the finding have produced startling lessons, and not only for the researchers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe surprising finding is that our relationships and how happy we are in our relationships has a powerful influence on our health,\u201d said Robert Waldinger<\/a>, director of the study, a psychiatrist at Massachusetts General Hospital<\/a> and a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School<\/a>. \u201cTaking care of your body is important, but tending to your relationships is a form of self-care too. That, I think, is the revelation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Close relationships, more than money or fame, are what keep people happy throughout their lives, the study revealed. Those ties protect people from life\u2019s discontents, help to delay mental and physical decline, and are better predictors of long and happy lives than social class, IQ, or even genes. That finding proved true across the board among both the Harvard men and the inner-city participants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Dr.

“The people who were the most satisfied in their relationships at age 50 were the healthiest at age 80,\u201d said Robert Waldinger with his wife Jennifer Stone.\t\t\t<\/p>

Rose Lincoln\/Harvard Staff Photographer<\/p><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The long-term research has received funding from private foundations, but has been financed largely by grants from the National Institutes of Health, first through the National Institute of Mental Health, and more recently through the National Institute on Aging.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Researchers who have pored through data, including vast medical records and hundreds of in-person interviews and questionnaires, found a strong correlation between men\u2019s flourishing lives and their relationships with family, friends, and community. Several studies found that people\u2019s level of satisfaction with their relationships at age 50 was a better predictor of physical health than their cholesterol levels were.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen we gathered together everything we knew about them about at age 50, it wasn\u2019t their middle-age cholesterol levels that predicted how they were going to grow old,\u201d said Waldinger in a popular TED Talk<\/a>. \u201cIt was how satisfied they were in their relationships. The people who were the most satisfied in their relationships at age 50 were the healthiest at age 80.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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