By David Levin
December 3, 2024
• Research
There’s no single key to staying healthy as we age, but a number of scientific studies have found that a healthy mental outlook can help keep the doctor away.
Margie Lachman, the Minnie and Harold Fierman Professor of Psychology, says that experiencing social support, a sense of purpose, and a feeling of control over one’s life can be directly linked to physical health in old age. Exactly why that link occurs, however, isn’t yet clear. But a new paper she published in the Journal of Psychosomatic Research is starting to chip away at the question. In the study, her lab has identified six biomarkers in the body that seem to be related to a participant’s frame of mind.
Lachman based her work on data from Midlife in the United States (MIDUS), a decades-long national study that tracks more than 4,000 Americans through middle and old age. Participants fill out detailed questionnaires on their mental and physical health over time, and periodically travel to a clinic to give samples of blood, saliva, urine, and other fluids. From this massive trove of data, Lachman’s lab was able to draw on survey data from 1,244 adults ages 34 to 82 — and test those same participants’ blood for six common molecules involved in chronic inflammation, a known contributor to diseases of aging like cancer and dementia.
“We’ve known for a long time that inflammation is bad. What we didn’t know is how psycho-social variables are related to it,” Lachman notes.
The results of her lab’s study offered some tantalizing clues: Participants who reported high levels of social support, a strong sense of control, and a robust sense of purpose consistently had lower inflammation and fewer chronic conditions.
There are a few possible explanations for that finding, says Kylie Schilkoski, a PhD student in Lachman’s lab and study co-author. In people who reported more positive mental states, benefits to their physical health may be related to changes in behavior. High scorers in the study, she notes, may simply be more likely to engage in healthy habits like eating well and exercising.
“If you have these positive attitudes, they may motivate you and allow you to engage in health-promoting behaviors,” Schilkoski says. “Cumulatively, those could add up over a person’s lifespan and really determine health outcomes.”
Behavior, however, isn’t the only factor, Lachman adds. When examined in other studies, those same participants also reported significantly lower levels of stress (the presence of which has long been proven to cause inflammation throughout the body.)
“If you have these three psychosocial resources — social support, sense of purpose, and sense of control — it may also reduce stress, which is probably one of the key mechanisms for anti-inflammatory properties,” she says.
Other studies from Lachman’s lab suggest that positive attitudes can help to minimize declines and maintain mental and physical health in later life. In addition to getting involved in social groups or volunteer organizations, adopting cognitive-behavioral techniques that help patients identify and challenge unhelpful thoughts can help reverse negative mindsets, potentially lowering chronic inflammation in the process.
“It’s almost as if people’s attitudes compensate for some of the risk factors that they might have,” Lachman says. “These beliefs are very powerful. They affect your choices in life, and we now think they also affect your biology.”
link
