Finally, the real secret of long life has been identified.

And it doesn’t involve kales, so it’s safe to carry on reading.

Psychologist Susan Pinker has just written a book based on research in the mountainous regions of Sardinia where more people live to the age of 100 than anywhere else.

And her main finding into what all these tough old birds have in common is – friendship. That simple.

In the isolated village communities there are huge extended families. But friends are treated like family too.

The only people who may be shunned are those perceived not to take proper care of older family members.

How ironic then that here we spend more and more time on individualistic personal attempts to prolong our lives while neglecting the thing that might actually achieve it.

The pool of people we can call “real friends” is ever dwindling.

As the number of Facebook friends swirling round the internet rockets, the number of proper mates who’ll pull you out of a puddle (actual or emotional) reduces.

Having close friends who, over the years, have done so much to endanger my life (not to mention relationships, self-respect, and liver) it’s hard to imagine they could actually extend my life.

But then it’s impossible to imagine life without them too.

Of course we all blame “time” for our failing friendships.

We tell ourselves we haven’t time to see this friend, or phone that pal or listen to that friend talk through her relationship catastrophes one more time or to debate curtain swatches or swap man moans or work woes.

But who’s taken all the time? Where have they put it?

And, more importantly, how do we get it back? Because with each fading friendship our lives are reduced. Both in quality and, now it’s been proved, in months and years too.

The reasoning for that apparently is that the human brain evolved in the days when isolation and loneliness meant starvation or a violent end involving a pack of jackals.

And that’s why loneliness feels physically painful, like hunger or thirst.

Easing that loneliness is a basic survival instinct. Which is why we MUST do it.

In truth we all know who’s stolen the time – it’s the internet providers who’ve sold us a virtual playground, the retailers who’ve sold us stuff we don’t need but buy anyway, the industry which has sold endless ultimately pointless ‘character-building’ activities for our kids.

It’s the bosses who know we need to pay for all this stuff.

And it’s ourselves. Because we’ve all colluded with the Great Time Robbery.