HHS HealthBeat (February 19, 2010)

Good old volunteering

From the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, I’m Ira Dreyfuss with HHS HealthBeat.

Doing some good when you’ve gotten old, by being a volunteer, seems to carry some health benefits. Researcher Catherine Sarkisian of UCLA saw signs of that in data on close to 1,100 people ages 70 to 79 between 1988 and 1991.

Sarkisian compared people who did volunteer work with those who kept active but did not volunteer. She looked for signs of frailty – weight loss, low energy and strength, and low physical activity:

[Catherine Sarkisian speaks] ``The group that had been doing volunteer activity was substantially less likely to have new frailty.’’

Sarkisian says it’s possible that volunteering did something to reduce their risk of frailty. And she recommends volunteering.

The study in the Journal of Gerontology was supported by the National Institutes of Health.

Learn more at hhs.gov.

HHS HealthBeat is a production of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. I’m Ira Dreyfuss.

Last revised: May 7, 2011