Building strong relationships across your life—from supportive parenting in childhood to close friendships, community ties, and faith involvement in adulthood—may influence how quickly your body ages. Researchers suggest that these “social advantages” are associated with biological aging markers known as epigenetic clocks, which track age-related changes in DNA methylation. People who report more supportive, connected lives often appear biologically younger than their chronological age.
A Long-Term Study Links Social Advantage to a “Younger” Biology
The results, published in the October issue of Brain, Behavior, and Immunity – Health, are based on data from more than 2,100 adults from the ongoing Midlife in the United States (MIDUS) study.
Anthony Ong, a psychology professor at Cornell University, and his colleagues found that people with greater “cumulative social advantage”—a measure of social and emotional support built up over a lifetime—tended to show slower biological aging and lower levels of inflammation.
How Researchers Measured the Pace of Aging
The team focused on two widely used measures of biological age: GrimAge and DunedinPACE. Both are epigenetic clocks designed to estimate health risk and longevity by analyzing DNA methylation patterns. Participants with stronger and more consistent social ties tended to show younger biological profiles on both measures.
Ong explained that cumulative social advantage reflects the “depth and breadth” of a person’s relationships over time. The researchers assessed four areas: warmth and support received from parents during childhood, a sense of connection to community and neighborhood, involvement in religious or faith-based communities, and ongoing emotional support from friends and family.
The Biology of Connection
The researchers proposed that long-term social advantage becomes embedded in major regulatory systems related to aging, including epigenetic, inflammatory, and neuroendocrine pathways. In the analysis, higher cumulative social advantage was associated with lower levels of interleukin-6, a pro-inflammatory molecule linked to conditions such as heart disease, diabetes, and neurodegenerative disorders.
At the same time, the study did not find meaningful links between social advantage and short-term stress hormones such as cortisol and catecholamines, suggesting the benefits may be more closely tied to inflammation and long-term biological regulation than to moment-to-moment stress responses.
Why Lifelong Relationships May Matter More Than Single-Instance Factors
Many earlier studies have examined social factors in isolation—for example, whether someone is married or how many friends they have. This research instead treated social advantage as multidimensional and cumulative, combining early-life and adult relational resources to capture how social benefits can cluster and accumulate over time.
Ong emphasized that the most notable pattern was the accumulation: social resources appear to build on each other across decades, shaping health trajectories in ways that are reflected in measurable biological markers.
Connection as a Long-Term Investment
The findings do not mean that a single new friendship or a short period of volunteering can “reverse” biological aging. The authors argue that what matters most is sustained, reliable connection across different spheres of life. In that sense, social life is not only a source of emotional well-being—it may also be a meaningful contributor to physical health.
Ong compared social connection to a retirement account: starting earlier and contributing consistently may lead to greater returns. In this case, those returns may be biological as well as emotional, with people who maintain richer, long-lasting connections showing signs of slower aging at the cellular level.
