New research shows how connections affect aging at the cellular level.

This longevity superterm refers to the accumulation of robust social connections over a lifetime, including strong relationships with family and friends and involvement in religious and community groups. Researchers increasingly have found that these long-standing connections and involvements can reduce stress and trigger the release of hormones and brain chemicals that have biological benefits. 

Yet the effects of cumulative social advantage on biological aging have remained poorly understood (along with related socioeconomic variations). In a recent paper in Brain, Behavior, & Immunity, Anthony D. Ong, Frank D. Mann, and Laura Kubzansky analyzed data from more than 2,000 adults in the Midlife in the United States study to examine this connection. They documented something extraordinary: People who stayed connected and engaged aged more slowly at the cellular level. Specifically, their DNA showed fewer changes linked to aging and their bodies carried lower levels of chronic inflammation.

“Our findings add to growing evidence that social connection is as important for longevity as many traditional biomedical risk factors,” Ong, a Cornell University psychology professor, wrote in an email interview. “For healthcare and medicine, it suggests that assessing and strengthening social connection should be viewed as core preventive practice — on par with monitoring blood pressure or cholesterol — and that social context belongs in risk prediction, treatment planning, and population-level strategies to promote healthy longevity.”

The term “cumulative social advantage” (CSA) originates in scholarship by sociologists Harriet Zuckerman and Robert K. Merton. In the 1960s, they explored how the early achievements of academic scientists often led to greater future opportunities and rewards. (For Zuckerman and Merton, one reward was their eventual marriage.)  

Also known as the Matthew Effect, cumulative advantage has been used to describe how initial accomplishments lead to more and sustained achievements over time, while those with disadvantages fall further behind. The phenomenon is apparently timeless: Merton cited the biblical Gospel of Matthew in a 1968 paper to get across this seesaw of haves and have-nots: “For unto everyone that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance; but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath.”

Ong, who directs Cornell’s Human Health Labs, said his interest in cumulative social advantage grew out of long-standing work on how relationships and emotions shape health across the lifespan. “Much of the literature focused either on early adversity or on adult social support measured at a single point in time. CSA was our attempt to integrate these strands and treat social connection as a lifelong exposure.” 

Ong says the longevity field will continue to move toward connecting social experience, psychological processes, and biological mechanisms. “A key next step is translating this knowledge into interventions and policies that treat social infrastructure and social health as central pillars of healthy aging.”