Welcome to Breakpoint, a daily look, and an ever-changing culture through the lens of unchanging truth.

For the Colson Center, I'm John Stone Street.

Since 1938, the Harvard Study of Adult Development has followed two groups of men.

One, a group of 456 boys from Boston's most troubled families in roughest neighborhoods.

The other, 268 Harvard students,

chosen by a professor of hygiene, specifically for their potential to become healthy, well-adjusted

adults. The focus of this longitudinal study has been to discern those factors that best

predict a long healthy life. The researchers that have followed these young men have maintained

a stunning 84% participation rate over the course of eight decades.

They visited homes, spoke to parents, siblings, tracked medical exams, followed marriages, careers.

The study, which is now tracking a second generation of participants as well, has produced a wealth of significant data.

However, in a recent article that was published in the Wall Street

Journal, the director, Dr. Robert Wallinger, and associate director, Dr. Mark Schultz, pointed

to the most significant contributing factor for physical health, mental health, and longevity,

according to the data. Quote, close personal connections are significant enough that if we had

to take all 85 years of the Harvard study and boil it down to a single principle for living, one life investment that is supported by similar findings across a variety of other studies, it would be this.

Good relationships keep us healthier and happier.

Period. If you want to make one decision to ensure your own health and happiness, it should be to

cultivate warm relationships of all kinds, end quote. In fact, the importance of relationships for

long-term health only increased as the participants aged, especially for older people. Waltinger and

Schultz continue, quote, loneliness is twice as unhealthy as obesity. Chronic loneliness increases a person's odds of death in any

given year by 26%. Well, modern life strains our most important relationships in important ways,

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