6 Facts That Prove Friends Are Ridiculously Healthy For Us

According to science, friends can make us happier, healthier, and yes, even more beautiful.
Friends make hills seem less steep(empinada)
And not just in a metaphorical sense. In a fascinating study published in the Journal of
Experimental Social Psychology, participants estimated a hill to be less steep when they were
accompanied by a friend than when they were alone. What's more, the longer the friends knew
each other, the less steep the incline seemed.
Friends make you look more attractive
A small study from the University of California, San Diego, suggests that the
cheerleader(animador)( one who leads spectators in cheering) effectthe idea that you look more
attractive in a group than you do alonemight be true. When researchers asked 139 college
students to rank the general attractiveness of people in a group photo, then to rank one person
from the group when shown his/her photo individually, the individual photos were ranked 5.5
percent less attractive.
Buddies(canarada, amigo) help you battle cancer
In a 2005 study published in the journal Cancer, women with ovarian cancer who had adequate
social support (a lot of friends) had an average of 70 percent less interleukin- 6(interleucina, un
componente qumico en el Sistema inmunolgico), a blood protein that can reduce the
effectiveness of chemotherapy(quimioterapia), than patients with fewer friends.
Loneliness is bad for your health
When Julianne Holt-Lunstad, associate professor of psychology at Brigham Young
University analyzed data from nearly 150 studies of social relationships and mortality for a paper
published in PLOS Medicine a few years ago, she uncovered (descubri) a startling statistic: A
weak social circle can take a toll (dao) on your longevitycomparable to smoking a pack of
cigarettes a day. "We need to start taking our social relationships more seriously," Holt-Lunstad
said in a statement. "The effect of this is comparable to obesity, something that public health
takes very seriously."
Close friends share DNA
You might wish your BFF could be your sister; now a recent study suggests that close friends
share about one percent of their DNA, making them as close genetically as fourth cousins.
Researchers from Yale University and the University of California San Diego analyzed data from
nearly 2,000 people and found that the "chemistry" that draws friends together may
stem(contener, compartir, rama, branch) from shared DNA. This could help explain the evolution
of friendship.
Babies understand friendship
Friendship might be so essential to our well-being, even young babies can understand social
relationshipsbefore they can walk or talk, according to a 2014 study from the University of
Chicago. The research team showed 64 nine-month-olds two videos. In one, two people ate a
food and each reacted positively or negatively. In the other, the same two people greeted each
other warmly or by turning their backs on one another. When the reactions didn't matchboth
people had the same reaction to the food, but greeted each other coldlythe babies
stared(stare=mirar fijamente) at the screen longer, a sign that things didn't seem quite right.
"Infants are able to watch strangers interact and then make inferences about whether those two
people are likely to be friends," Amanda Woodward, the study's co-author, told The Huffington
Post.