People In Relationships Just Live Longer
I'm not lonely. I've got my cats for company.
From The Washington Post
By Kathleen Doheny
THURSDAY, June 14 (HealthDay News) -- Single life has its charms and freedoms, but adults who never marry may not live as long as their wedded peers, new research suggests.
While the protective effect of marriage on health and longevity has been pointed out before, newer research is zeroing in on the never-married folks. Staying single all your life may not be good for your health or your lifespan, University of California, Los Angeles researchers have found.
The team looked at the 1997 U.S. National Death Index and the 1989 National Health Interview Survey. In 1989, almost half of the people surveyed were married; about 10 percent were widowed; 12 percent divorced; 3 percent separated; 5 percent living with someone; and 20 percent had never married.
Compared with married people, those who had never been married were 58 percent more likely to have died at the end of the study's eight-year follow up period.
By comparison, those who were widowed were nearly 40 percent more likely to die during the follow-up than were married participants, while those who had been divorced or separated were 27 percent more likely to die.
Tango’s Take
In The Princess Bride, Billy Crystal asks the Dread Pirate Roberts what he has to live for. Crystal interprets the response as a “to blave,” and informs us that means “to bluff” and this guy clearly was cheating at cards. The nearly comatose pirate actually said “true love.” We’re not sure if the apt cliché is “misery loves company” or something, but it appears there is “rigid scientific proof” that human beings require love and companionship. Congratulations guys, way to figure out that widowed individuals don’t survive without their spouse for very long. Hopefully someone will let us know that working hard and staying up late makes us sleepy.
Discussion
Sorry are2, this kind of research is self-fulfilling crap. There are all kinds of studies/anecdotes/common knowledge things out there that say people live longer when they are loved.
What kind of funding are you looking for? Funding for helping people make friends? Really? Have we become so dependent on the government and social programs to do things for us that we expect them to help us make contact with the outside world? You should close your laptop, go to a bar, and buy someone pretty a drink. Your funding for that sort of evening is roughly $20, which I'm sure you could cough up without Uncle Sam's help.
Research like this is what leads to better funding for interventions to help people create and maintain social networks. Non-profits, clinics, senior organizations and other helping groups need reports like these in order to get grant funding and other resources. Congratulations, Tango, for not thinking about the long-term benefits of this research.
