So you want to live longer? Sir Michael Marmot, one of Britain's leading experts on health and social behaviour, tells Nadine O'Regan there's an easy way to manage it.
People in search of better health and longevity should pack their bags and head to college. If they stay there until they've earned a masters degree, they will have a longer life expectancy than those with no degrees or bachelors degrees. Education, it seems, is literally a lifesaver.
Sir Michael Marmot reveals why this should be so in his new book Status Syndrome. According to his argument, which is based on more than 30 years of research, the greater our personal status, the more likely we are to live long and healthy lives.
"Where you stand in the social hierarchy is intimately related to your chances of getting ill, and the length of your life," Marmot writes. "Health follows a social gradient."
Marmot's theory may initially sound like it's at base a discussion about money. After all, we know that poorly-paid people who work in dire conditions are more likely to have health problems and die younger than well-paid college professors and graduates.
But Marmot delivers research to show that in western countries where serious poverty is rare, it is not money that makes the crucial difference in people's lives, but status. He also reveals how this situation holds true not just for those at the opposite extremes of society, but for everyone existing in the hierarchy between those extremes.
Actors who win Oscars, for example, are shown to live four years longer than actors who have not received this honour.
In another study, civil servants who operated at a high level were proven to be less susceptible to illness than civil servants who were lower down in the chain. We don't realise it, but when we win a promotion or an award, we are improving not just our status, but also our chances of living longer, healthier lives.
"We are acutely conscious of status differentials," says Marmot, "but when we think about health, we assume that's something to do with, 'are there enough doctors around?' We don't think that these status differentials are likely to have big impacts on our health.
"Part of the reason for writing the book was to make explicit that these status differentials do matter for health. They're really rather vital."
Status is important for health in part because of the attributes that come with it. If you have a high-status job, you are more likely to enjoy a strong degree of control over your working day. You are also more likely to have dense social networks that bind you closely together with your peers.
As Marmot documents, these are all factors that reduce your chances of becoming ill and increase your likelihood of living a longer life.
This is true in societies across the globe. And, to return to the money argument, it appears that denizens of countries that boast successful economies do not necessarily enjoy better health than those living in poorer countries.
In the US, for example, the gross domestic product (GDP) per person is about $34,000 and there is an average life expectancy of 76.9 years.
But in Japan, where the GDP is only $25,000, the average life expectancy is 81.3 years.
"Part of my argument is that lack of control affects whole societies," says Marmot.
"The so-called command economies of the communist countries were precisely that. People couldn't exercise control over their own circumstances to anything like the degree that they could in freer societies.
"Things got worse in Russia after the collapse of communism. There was a massive increase in inequality and poverty and it was far more difficult for people to control their circumstances. And health got dramatically worse."
The solution to these problems, as Marmot sees it, is to create shallower hierarchies in which people have more autonomy and control over their working lives. "We can organise our work so that the majority of people are alienated and feel like they're wage slaves," he says.
"Or we can organise work places so people have more control over what they do and feel more engaged."
He also advocates improving education systems and giving older people "real opportunities for social engagement".
Whatever the future holds, Marmot hopes that his book will provide people with valuable enlightenment about their health.
"An important part of the reason for writing it was to try and help change understanding," he says.
"Status differentials affect all of us and hence we need to look at our set of social arrangements. "To come back to the quote that I put at the beginning of the book [from the author Amartya Sen]: 'We not only value living well and satisfactorily, but also appreciate having control over our own lives.'"
Status Syndrome is published by Bloomsbury.