An interesting article titled “Perceived social support-giving moderates the association between social relationships and interleukin-6 levels in blood,” appears in the 2022 edition of Brain, Behavior, and Immunity (no. 100: pp. 25-28) written by T. Jiang and et al. The article seeks to explore if perceived social support-giving (i.e. the belief that one can be available to give social support to others) moderates associations between social relationships and inflammation. Thus the article looks at the willingness to give social support to others such as family and friends instead of just receiving help from those same people.
In the article, the researchers looked at data from the National Survey of Midlife Development in the U.S. (MIDUS II) and in particular 1054 healthy middle-aged adults between 34 and 84 years old. The data contained questionnaires on social integration, support-availability from others, positive relations with others, socio-demographic information, support-giving, and health-related information along with blood samples of interleukin-6 (IL-6) which is a marker of systemic inflammation. These questionnaires were self-completed and contained questions like if they were married or living alone, how often they contacted family and friends, how often they attended social groups or activities, and there was also a question on how much they believed they could rely on their family or friends if they needed help.
The authors found that perceived support-giving moderated the associations between IL-6 and indicators of positive social relationships. It was also found that indicators of positive social relationships were associated with lower IL-6 among individuals with higher perceived support-giving. Thus, the authors found that indicators of positive social relationships were associated with lower chronic inflammation only among those who said they were able to provide social support to family and friends. The authors state:
“Positive relationships may be associated with lower inflammation only for those who believe they can give more support in those relationships…Perhaps when people believe they can give more support in their positive relationships with others, these mutually supportive relationships are especially rewarding and stress relieving, which reduces inflammation.”
Higher levels of IL-6 are associated with increased risk for many deadly diseases including cardiovascular disease and cancer. The main takeaway here is that you need to be available to help others in time of need, not be the one one receives that help. The exact mechanism on the authors findings is not yet known.
It is noted that the authors found the importance of being available to help others held true after accounting for other factors that may affect inflammation, such as income, age, and education and also for medication use, health behaviors, and any current medical conditions one is living with. The authors also found that the link between health and the willingness to help others may be stronger and more pronounced for women. From this, it seems the commonly held idea that social relationships are more important for women than for men holds true. The authors do point out that there sample size was not quite large enough to determine this definitively and this is a topic for additional investigation in the future. It is also noted that this study only looked at what people said they were willing to do, not the actual actions one carried out to help family and friends in time of need. This may have implications, as what one says they are willing to do, may not actually be what they would do in reality if faced with the situation.