Friendship leads to longer life

I saw this article in the NY Times about how the benefits of friendship are largely unstudied, especially compared to family relationships. I have been very lucky to have some great friends in this lot in life, and those relationships have for sure been great for my own well-being. I particularly enjoyed this quote from the article:

Last year, researchers studied 34 students at the University of Virginia, taking them to the base of a steep hill and fitting them with a weighted backpack. They were then asked to estimate the steepness of the hill. Some participants stood next to friends during the exercise, while others were alone.

The students who stood with friends gave lower estimates of the steepness of the hill. And the longer the friends had known each other, the less steep the hill appeared.

Link to article.