How does love heal? By citing doctors’ words and by telling scientific findings, the author in this article talks about the healing power of love and the relationship between one’s feelings and one’s health, something few people know much about. Read on and learn more about the topic.

    In his best-seller, a pioneering physician reveals what may be the best-kept secret in medicine.
Open Your Heart — How you feel emotionally can affect you physically. Men who were the most socially isolated had a higher risk of death than those with the most social connections.
     “I ask virtually every patient I see,” says Dr Harvey Zarren, a cardiologist (心脏病专家) in Lynn, Mass., ‘“With whom do you share your feelings?’” They look at me like I’m from outer space. But when people feel loved, things happen in their body’s physiology that encourage healing. It’s just amazing to watch.”
     My work with cardiac patients over the past 20 years has convinced me that love and intimacy (亲密) are at the root of health and illness. If a new drug had the same impact, virtually every doctor in the country would be recommending it for his patients.¹ It would be malpractice (不良行为) not to prescribe it. Yet with few exceptions we doctors don’t learn much in our medical training about the healing power of love.
     It may be hard to believe that something as simple as talking with friends, feeling close to your parents or sharing thoughts openly can make such a powerful difference in your health.² But many studies document that these things work.
     Scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, studied 119 men and 40 women who were undergoing coronary angiography (冠状动脉造影). Those who felt the most loved and supported had substantially less blockage in the arteries (动脉) of their hearts.
     Similarly, researchers in Israel studied more than 8500 men with no prior history of angina (chest pain). Men who had high levels of anxiety were more than twice as likely to develop angina during the next five years. ³
     However, those who answered “yes” to the question “Does your wife show you her love?” were significantly less likely to develop angina. “The wife’s love and support is an important balancing factor,” concluded the researchers.
     In Sweden more than 17,000 men and women between ages of 29 and 74 were studied for six years. Those who were the most isolated had almost four times the risk of dying prematurely (过早地).
     In another study in Sweden, this one of elderly men, those who had low emotional support or who lived alone had more than double the premature-death rate of the other men, even after controlling for risk factors that influence disease.⁴
     The power of social support also was seen in the North Karelia Project in Finland. It found that over five to nine years, men who were the most socially isolated had a risk of death two to three times higher than those with the most social connections. Again, these results were found even after adjustment for other risk factors.
     Can social ties with friends, family, work and community protect against infectious (传染的) diseases? To test this idea, Sheldon Cohen of Carnegie Mellon University in Pennsylvania and his colleagues from the University of Pittsburgh and the University of Virginia recruited 276 healthy volunteers ranging in age from 18 to 55. The volunteers were given nasal drops containing one of two types of rhinovirus (鼻病毒), which causes the common cold.
     Almost all who were exposed to the viruses were infected by them, but not everyone who was infected developed cold symptoms. According to the study, the diversity (差异) of one’s social relationships played a powerful role in predicting who would develop a cold. ⁵
     I believe the evidence is compelling: love and intimacy lead to greater health and healing, while loneliness and isolation predispose one to suffering, disease and premature death.
     Why these factors are so important, however, remains a bit of a mystery. I find it extraordinary that such an important and well-documented health factor is not better understood.
     “There’s a factor here that’s difficult to measure,” says Dr Rachel Naomi Remen, clinical professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. “Why do some people get well even though their physicians think they have no chance, while others die who seem to have had every chance to recover? ⁶ Survival seems to depend on something more than just having the right treatment. Perhaps knowing that others care, that you matter to other people, strengthens a deep impulse (冲动) toward life — a will to live — that is in every one of us.”⁷
     I have no intention of diminishing the power of diet and exercise or even drugs and surgery. But scientific studies have made it clear that the capacity to nurture and be nurtured (培育，滋养) — to have what I call an open heart — is vitally important to having a long, healthy life.⁸

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