Credits: Social Media
Choose friends wisely never been truer as study shows link between friends and increased health issues
There is some truth to the idiom ‘Choose your friends wisely’ it seems as a new study has highlighted how poor friends in high school can spark serious issues in later life.
Even if you aren’t planning on marrying your friends anytime soon, connection through friendship is proven to be great for mental and physical health. Though the average American only has two to three close friends, the internet is brimming with illustrations of how to be a good friend.
Drugs are a girl’s best friend
A new study from Rutgers Health, published in the American Journal of Psychiatry this week, dove into the peculiar connection between bad friends, mental issues, and even addiction.
Peers genetic predispositions for psychiatric and substance use disorders are associated with an individual’s own risk of developing the same disorders in young adulthood, said Jessica E. Salvatore, an associate professor of psychiatry at the Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. “What our data exemplifies is the long reach of social genetic effects.”
The study is part of an emerging scientific field known as Socio-genomics, the influence of one persons genotype on the traits of another person.
Using a Swedish data set of over 1.5 million people, the scientists built a geographical chart alongside gathered data from medical, pharmacy, and legal registries. This helped to build a picture of a person’s mental health disorders and potential substance issues.
Even after the researchers took into account the genetic and personal factors, they found a clear link between peers genetic predispositions and the potential for their friends to develop mental health issues in the future.
The connection was most clear in high school students
Though the link was present in all school groups, researchers noticed the strongest effects in high school and secondary school systems where students were between the ages of 16 and 19.
The most obvious explanation for why peers genetic predispositions might be associated with our own well-being is the idea our peers genetic predispositions influence their phenotype, or the likelihood that peers are also affected by the disorder, the lead author said. But in our analysis, we found that peers genetic predispositions were associated with target individuals likelihood of disorder even after we statistically controlled for whether peers were affected or unaffected.
Following the study, Jessica suggests that officials need to look at sociological factors like friendship when trying to address rampant drug abuse and mental health disorders.
If we want to think about how to best address these socially costly disorders, we need to think more about network-based and social interventions, she said. Its not enough to think about individual risk.
