High-Yield Personal Bonds
Numerous studies by psychologist Janice Kiecolt-Glaser, PhD, and her husband, immunologist Ronald Glaser, PhD, both professors at the Ohio State University, indicate that the more support a person has from friends and family, the more protective his or her immune system is.
One of their earliest studies, on perpetually stressed medical school students, showed that those who were more isolated and lonely were less responsive to a series of hepatitis-B vaccines. Women with close ties to family and friends also have more energy and are physically stronger than those lacking such relationships, according to a study of 56,436 women ages 55 to 72 conducted at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital.
