T's parents are both very active in their church - they're in the choir, they're in the vestry council, he's the church treasurer. They're both exercising regularly. And they're both on medication for high blood pressure, and he's on medication for high cholesterol. I do believe the bp and cholesterol are at least in good part hereditary. It's reassuring to think that their active spiritual life is probably making their situation easier than it would otherwise be. Without the social and spiritual connections they have with their congregation, perhaps they'd be ill instead of active people who need to take some medication.
I'd next like to see how longevity is affected with volunteerism versus religious service attendance. The hard part about that, is that people who volunteer most likely already strive to have good self-care habits. A hypothesis: The feel-good-about-yourself involvement with "something greater than yourself" lowers chronic stress. Or, we can isolate that characteristic of religious service attendance that does the job.
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Nobody wants to talk about morbidity, do they?
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