Why people in their sixties with a purpose in life are healthier

People in their sixties who experience their lives as purposeful have fewer inflammatory factors such as CRP in their blood than people in their sixties who think that their lives have no purpose. Because high CRP levels are bad for just about every facet of your health, living a purposeful life makes you healthier.


Canadian psychologists at Concordia University followed 129 adults aged 63-91 for 6 years. The researchers used questionnaires every 2 years to determine how meaningful the study participants thought their lives were. The researchers also determined the concentration of the inflammatory protein CRP in the blood of the study participants.

A lifestyle that lowers the concentration of inflammatory proteins such as CRP reduces the risk of premature death or chronic disease. The researchers wondered whether psychological factors also play a role in the activity of inflammatory proteins. They suspected that experiencing meaning and purpose in life reduces CRP concentration.

Results
In the youngest 25 percent of study participants - ages 63-73 - CRP activity decreased as study participants experienced more purpose in their lives.

However, in the oldest 25 percent of the study participants - those aged 81 years and older - purpose no longer had any effect on the concentration of CRP in the blood.

In the youngest age category, the study participants were still fit and healthy enough to try to do something meaningful with their lives, the Canadians suspect. However, when that health had failed due to aging, those attempts often failed. This frustration meant that in that older age category a sense of meaning and purpose no longer had a positive effect on the CRP level.

"While the experience of purposeful goals may exert beneficial health-related function in early old age, when individuals typically confront goal-related stressors that could be potentially overcome, high levels of purpose in life may be less adaptive in advanced old age, when many older adults confront intractable problems and unattainable goals", the researchers speculate.

If psychologists are right, people who want to live a purposeful life in advanced old age still have less CRP in their blood if they are exceptionally fit and healthy. Or if they are resourceful and can still achieve their life goals despite their declining health.


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