United Kingdom: Two new studies have found that satisfying relationships with partners, family, friends, and work colleagues as well as exercising at least once every month could boost physical and mental health in old age.

The two new research papers in specialist journals published by the British Medical Journal (BMJ) have shed new light on what behaviours in middle age might help improve our chances of enjoying good health later in life.

The first study found that social relationships with partners, relatives, friends, and colleagues are linked to a lower risk of accumulating multiple long-term conditions in old age. The less satisfying these relationships are in your 40s and 50s, the greater the risk of having several illnesses later in life.

The study examined almost 8,000 women in Australia who were free from 11 common long-term conditions and aged 45 to 50 when the study began in 1996. Every three years, they reported their satisfaction levels with their partners, family members, friends, and work colleagues.They were tracked for 20 years to see if they developed diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, stroke, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, asthma, osteoporosis, arthritis, cancer, depression, or anxiety.

The researchers found that individuals who reported the lowest level of satisfaction with their social relationships had double the risk of developing multiple conditions compared with those who reported the highest levels of satisfaction. Similar results were found in each different type of social relationship in the results published in the General Psychiatry journal.

A second study led by University College London and published in the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry found that regular physical activity at any age is linked to better brain function in old age, and maintaining physical exercise throughout adulthood seems to be good for preserving mental acuity and memory and staving off conditions such as dementia.

“The greatest cognitive effect was seen for those who stayed physically active throughout their life. The effect is accumulative, so the longer an individual is active, the more likely they are to have higher later-life cognitive function,” Dr Sarah-Naomi James, lead author of the study observed.

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