Social Connection Can Assist in Longevity

Two lives took opposite paths and rewrote assumptions about success.

Welcome to a newsletter themed at the intersection of longevity and wine history. 🍷

Grandma Kay still going at 104 (November 2025)

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Some people spend their lives chasing achievement, like the next promotion or bonus. However, it often comes at an unexpected cost: unstable emotional connections with friends and family.

In fact, one of the longest studies ever conducted on human development, known as The Grant Study, suggests that those who prioritized career over personal connection often paid for it with loneliness, illness and regret.

This personality study was launched in the 1930s by Harvard University. It shed light on longevity beyond biology, which piqued my interest, as I’m often reading and researching how my maternal grandmother, Kay Gemello, keeps going at age 104.

The Grant Study examined such issues as nature vs. nurture, connections between personality and health; and whether mental and physical illnesses can be predicted. It also explored whether some of these factors can influence career choice.

The participants began as undergraduates but were surveyed over several decades. As various participants got married and had children, many of their spouses and offspring were included as well.

Over time, more than two thousand men and women “were poked, prodded, interviewed and psychologically analyzed,” writes Charles Duhigg in his new book, Supercommunicators: How to Unlock the Secret Language of Connection.¹

Among the first of the participants were Godfrey Camille and John Marsden. The two Harvard undergraduates had contrasting backgrounds.

Camille was raised in a secluded environment, away from other families, because his parents were “pathologically suspicious.” When he arrived at Harvard in 1938, he seemed overwhelmed, researchers noted. He was skinny, physically weak and struggled to make friends. He attended medical school, but shortly after graduation, he attempted suicide. He grew so distant from his family that when his mother and sister died, he hardly mentioned their deaths in his follow-up surveys. At age 35, he was hospitalized for 14 months for pulmonary tuberculosis.

“I was glad to be sick,” he told a researcher. “I could go to bed for a year.”

“I was glad to be sick,” Camille told a researcher. “I could go to bed for a year.”

Marsden’s background was far different. He was an exceptional student from a wealthy and prominent family. He graduated from the University of Chicago Law School, near the top of his class. He became a public-service lawyer, got married and started a successful private practice.

The Grant Study had been designed with the aim of objectivity. The researchers wanted to avoid guessing which participants were likely to soar and stumble. However, they did make predictions. Many thought Marsden would be a leader in his community and Camille would wind up depressed, lonely and perhaps dead by suicide.

If the study had ended when a funding round dried up after 16 years, some might have said those predictions were not far off.

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Path Reversal

In the 1970s, though, a group of young psychiatric professors started digging through the study’s boxes and decided to prepare follow-up surveys. When they tracked down Camille and Marsden, both their paths had taken a 180-degree turn.

Camille, now in his 50s, had become a different person. He was married, a leader in his church, and had won over Boston’s medical establishment, founding a clinic specializing in allergy treatments. His daughters, who were young adults by then, called him an “exemplary father,” according to researchers who interviewed them.

The researchers continued follow-up surveys every two years. Each time they spoke to Camille, he seemed happier than ever, Duhigg writes in his book. At his 80th birthday party, he threw himself a potluck and over 300 people came.

Camille said what transformed his life was talking to other people, connecting with them, sharing his joys and sorrows.

“You know what I learned?” he told one interviewer. “I learned love.”

“You know what I learned?” Camille told one interviewer. “I learned love.”

In contrast, Marsden was in terrible shape when the researchers tracked him down in the 1970s. While his law practice was a success, he was divorced, had few friends and spent most of his time alone. He had been alienated from his children and family.

At one point, when Marsden was 43, he shared the following with the researchers:

“I’m growing old. Realize for the first time the reality of death. Feel I may not achieve what I wanted. Not sure I know how to bring up children. Tensions at work are severe.”

Marsden didn’t mention other people or relationships except in a negative way.

Duhigg notes in the book that across the decades and surveys, similar findings emerged again and again. People who had not invested in relationships, who had prioritized careers over family and friends or had struggled to connect for other reasons, were mostly miserable.

The key takeaway: the happiest participants called others regularly, made lunch and dinner dates, sent notes to friends saying they were proud of them, or wanted to help them shoulder sad news, Duhigg writers.

The key takeaway: the happiest participants called others regularly, made lunch and dinner dates, sent notes to friends saying they were proud of them, or wanted to help them shoulder sad news, Duhigg writers.

Most of all, happy participants engaged in many conversations over the years that brought them closer to others.

“Through all the years of studying these lives, one crucial factor stands out for the consistency and power of its ties to physical health, mental health and longevity,” reads a 2023 summary of the Harvard data. “Good relationships keep us healthier and happier.”

If you’re new here—hi, I’m Kevin!

I’m the author of 🍷 Rain on the Monte Bello Ridge,🍷 my forthcoming memoir about health, aging and winemaking. (Read the origin story of the book.) 🍇

The Centenarian Playbook is my newsletter, which features:

• Healthy aging/longevity tips and stories from Grandma Kay’s long life.

• Wine history & stories of the Gemello Winery

• Ancestry & family research tips

1. About Supercommunicators: We all know a type of person who seems to connect with everybody in any social setting. They engage with you, making you feel smarter, funnier and more interesting. These “supercommunicators” excel at recognizing what you are seeking in any given conversation, such as advice or emotional support. They adapt their approach accordingly. Charles Duhigg’s book breaks down how most of us, who struggle at this, can learn to become super communicators.