{"id":421352,"date":"2026-05-10T21:14:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-10T21:14:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/421352\/"},"modified":"2026-05-10T21:14:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-10T21:14:08","slug":"want-to-live-longer-doctor-says-friendships-beat-supplements-and-saunas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/421352\/","title":{"rendered":"Want to live longer? Doctor says friendships beat supplements and saunas"},"content":{"rendered":"

This obsession can lead to isolation, stress and anxiety \u2013 symptoms of what is known as \u201clongevity fixation syndrome\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe most important thing for leading a long, healthy and fulfilling life turns out to be your interaction with other people,\u201d Emanuel says.<\/p>\n

\u201cBeing the guy who\u2019s going to the gym at 5am and working out [by] yourself, that\u2019s not a good idea. Turns out that having rich social relationships is really more important for your longevity, more important for living healthfully than the exercise or the food and all that stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"DrDr Ezekiel Emanuel, a US oncologist, bioethicist and health policy expert, has published a book on wellness called Eat Your Ice Cream.<\/p>\n

In Emanuel\u2019s recent book Eat Your Ice Cream: Six Simple Rules for a Long and Healthy Life, social relationships are listed as one of several pillars to healthy living, alongside eating well, getting enough sleep and exercising.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s primary in my book, because the data are that it\u2019s the most important thing you can do to live a long, healthy and fulfilling life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Body scans and genetic testing are less important to living a long and healthy life than we might think, he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cLiving to 150 itself is not the point.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s the point of a life that long? You have to ask yourself, \u2018What is the point of longevity?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

To Emanuel, the goal should be a meaningful and fulfilling life, rather than a record-breaking number of years.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think, for most people, a good life means that they\u2019ve made a contribution to the people around them, to their community, to the larger country they live in and to the world.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I think getting outside yourself is actually critical to leading a full life.\u201d<\/p>\n

He believes social relationships with friends, family and acquaintances are the key to protecting your brain health as you age. <\/p>\n

\u201cI have a very clear notion of hell, which is my body\u2019s working fine, my heart\u2019s pumping, my lungs are doing well, my kidneys are still functioning well, liver\u2019s functioning, but my brain isn\u2019t, and I\u2019ve got dementia.\u201d <\/p>\n

Emanuel notes there are certain things you can do to reduce your risk of neurodegenerative diseases<\/a> such as dementia and Alzheimer\u2019s, including getting the shingles vaccine and a high-dose flu vaccine.<\/p>\n

Social interaction can also benefit brain health.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt activates the reward system in the body, activates oxytocin, the so-called love hormone in the brain. It also activates dopamine.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt tamps down the pituitary adrenal axis [the system that regulates stress, digestion and immunity] and the stress hormone cortisol.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why interacting with others isn\u2019t just psychologically good for us, but biologically beneficial. <\/p>\n

\u201cBeing socially isolated and having loneliness are associated with a number of genes … [that] turn out to be quite negative, very pro-inflammatory, very bad from a cardiovascular standpoint.\u201d <\/p>\n

Socialising can help keep those loneliness genes inactive. <\/p>\n

\u201cIn addition, we know from how we feel when we interact with people that human interaction is actually very fulfilling.\u201d<\/p>\n

The neocortex, the front part of the brain, allows us to collaborate and communicate, and makes us happy when we interact with others, he says. <\/p>\n

\u201cUnfortunately, our societies are going in the wrong direction. We\u2019re having fewer friends, fewer close friends who we spend a lot of time with. We\u2019re eating more meals alone.\u201d<\/p>\n

So, how do you go about forming close friendships and relationships, particularly as you age? Emanuel says virtual friendships won\u2019t cut it. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s almost impossible to form a new friendship over the phone.\u201d<\/p>\n

He suggests that existing relationships are easier to keep up virtually.<\/p>\n

He advises making \u201cweak connections\u201d: seeking out situations in which to meet people in person and strike up conversations.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe classic is the water cooler at work. In the modern era, it\u2019s the barista, it\u2019s your Uber driver, it\u2019s someone you happen to sit next to on an airplane or you get in some group with them. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou can join clubs \u2013 there are mountaineering clubs, there are running clubs, there are biking clubs, there are book clubs. There\u2019s all sorts of ways you can actually connect with other people, and then some of them might become, over time, close friends. Some of them may remain casual friends.\u201d <\/p>\n

It\u2019s important to maintain existing friendships too. For Emanuel, the ultimate \u201cwellness trifecta\u201d is simply inviting friends over for a meal.<\/p>\n

Not only do you get the physical health benefits of a home-cooked meal, you get the brain health benefits of socialising.<\/p>\n

\u201cI like to cook, I like to have people over to have good conversation and have dinner parties.<\/p>\n

\u201cI like to call those \u2018wellness trifectas\u2019, because not only do I get good food, I also get good social interaction with people and good brain stimulation. And so you\u2019re hitting more than one wellness behaviour by one activity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other ways to do this could be going for a walk and coffee with friends, or planning a family holiday with outdoor activities.<\/p>\n

\u201cThink about ways you can get a lot of wellness benefit from one activity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bethany Reitsma is a lifestyle writer who has been with the NZ Herald since 2019. She specialises in all things health and wellbeing and is passionate about telling Kiwis\u2019 real-life stories.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This obsession can lead to isolation, stress and anxiety \u2013 symptoms of what is known as \u201clongevity fixation…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":421353,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[3548,95,4498,7061,6440,1601,56389,134,5110,1019,7494,4960,2250,1446,5978,130,111,139,556,69,216345,384,73784,312,30947,17197,131,1361,165,61,28355,4524],"class_list":["post-421352","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nutrition","tag-3548","tag-and","tag-beat","tag-doctor","tag-ever","tag-expert","tag-friendships","tag-health","tag-healthy","tag-international","tag-less","tag-live","tag-longer","tag-making","tag-might","tag-more","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nutrition","tag-nz","tag-optimise","tag-people","tag-saunas","tag-says","tag-suggests","tag-supplements","tag-than","tag-that","tag-their","tag-to","tag-trying","tag-want"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421352","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=421352"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421352\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/421353"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=421352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=421352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=421352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}