Being a part of a faith community has been found to decrease risk of death by roughly 60 percent, according to researchers at the University of Colorado at Boulder, University of Texas at Austin, and Florida State University.
When they tracked health behavior information of 28,000 people, including 2,000 who died during the study follow-up period, they calculated that churchgoers, on average, lived to the age of 83, compared to non-church goers, who lived to 75.
Still, warming a church pew isn’t necessarily the magic ingredient, say scientists — it’s more likely that longevity is boosted by having a strong social support system and a lower incidence of unhealthy behaviors, like drinking or smoking.
