"In Roseto, virtually no one under fifty-five had died of a heart attack or showed any signs of heart disease. For men over sixty-five, the death rate from heart disease in Roseto was roughly half that of the United States as a whole. The death rate from all causes in Roseto, in fact, was 30 to 35 percent lower than expected." ~ Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers
Roseto, a town of 1,600 on the eastern tip of Pennsylvania, was a health mystery in the 1960's.
With rates of heart disease skyrocketing in the United States, people in Roseto, "were dying of old age. That's it." Researcher John Bruhn goes on: "There was no suicide, no alcoholism, no drug addiction, and very little crime. They didn't even have anyone on welfare. Then we looked at peptic ulcers. They didn't have any of those either."
Diet wasn't a factor. Rosetans smoked and drank wine excessively, ate sausage and meatballs cooked in lard, salami, and all types of cheeses. They ignored all the standard dietary advice of the time. Working conditions were poor at best. The men worked in toxic slate quarries, inhaling so much gas and dust as to be considered illegal by today's standards.
The reason disease rates were so low is best explained in another observation by Bruhn: "I remember going to Roseto for the first time, and you'd see three generational family meals, all the bakeries, the people walking up and down the street, sitting on their porches talking to each other, the blouse mills where the women worked during the day, while the men worked in the slate quarries... it was magical."
Research on "The Roseto Effect" has proven that being part of a community lessens your risk of stress-related disease. That doesn't mean being on a traditional sports team does the same thing. It depends on the outlook.
[h/t Malcolm Gladwell]