Forget friends, family is the key to a long and happy life: Having lots of close relatives helps to reduce the chance of death in older adults

If you want to live for a long time, it might be wise to end any family feuds now.

Perhaps proving, ‘blood is thicker than water’, people with close family ties live longer than people with a network of close friends.

It seems for older adults, having more or closer family members in one’s social network - particularly a husband or wife - decreases their likelihood of death.

Having a larger or closer group of friends did not have that effect.

The findings surprised researchers, who thought that as we choose our friends, we might think our friendships would cater to our individual needs better than our kin, who we do not choose.

Study lead author Doctor James Iveniuk, of the University of Toronto in Canada, said: ‘We found that older individuals who had more family in their network, as well as older people who were closer with their family were less likely to die.

‘No such associations were observed for number of or closeness to friends.’

The study used nationally representative figures to investigate which aspects of social networks are most important for postponing mortality for people aged 57 up to 85.

Dr Iveniuk said: ‘Regardless of the emotional content of a connection, simply having a social relationship with another person may have benefits for longevity.’

He said he was surprised that feeling closer to family members and having more relatives as confidants decreased the risk of death for older adults, but that the same was not true of relationships with friends.

Dr Iveniuk added: ‘Because you can choose your friends, you might, therefore, expect that relationships with friends would be more important for mortality, since you might be better able to customise your friend network to meet your specific needs.

‘But that account isn’t supported by the data - it is the people who in some sense you cannot choose, and who also have little choice about choosing you, who seem to provide the greatest benefit to longevity.’

The four factors most consistently associated with reduced mortality risk were being married, larger network size, greater participation in social organisations, and feeling closer to confidants, which all mattered to about the same degree.

Factors found to be less important included time with confidants, access to social support, and feelings of loneliness.

Marriage was found to have positive effects on longevity, regardless of marital quality.

Dr Iveniuk said that the findings back up the substantial importance of family relationships for longevity.

He added: “Going back to the very first sociological theorists, many different thinkers have noted that there is some kind of special significance that people attribute to family ties, leading people to stay close to and support people who wouldn’t necessarily be individuals that they would associate with if they had the choice.”

The findings are due to be presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association. 

By Colin Fernandez Science Correspondent For The Daily Mail