loneliness

Improving social isolation and loneliness may reduce mortality risk by up to 36%.

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Improving social isolation and loneliness may significantly reduce the risk of mortality, a study suggests. Laura Du Ve//Refinery29 Australia – We Are Many Image Gallery/Getty Images

  • A new study showed that improving social isolation and loneliness reduced the risk of all-cause mortality was reduced by 36% among participants with obesity, and 9% in those without obesity.
  • Social isolation was the leading risk factor for mortality risk when compared with loneliness, depression, and anxiety.
  • Experts agree that increased socialization may motivate people to engage in healthier behaviors.
  • To help people stay connected, it can be helpful to participate in group activities and hobbies you enjoy, set aside time regularly to speak with friends and family, and volunteer in your community.

Growing evidence demonstrates that people with obesity experience higher levels of social isolation and loneliness compared to those who are not obese.

In a recent study, researchers analyzed the link between improvement of social isolation and loneliness with mortality risk among 398,972 UK Biobank participants with and without obesity.

Results showed that as social isolation and loneliness improved, the risk of all-cause mortality was reduced by 36% and 9%, among participants with obesity compared to those without obesity.

In determining lifestyle risk factors for mortality risk, social isolation was at the top of the list. Other risk factors included loneliness, depression, and anxiety. The findings were published January 22 in JAMA Network OpenTrusted Source.

“More recently, social isolation and loneliness has appropriately received attention from healthcare professionals and has been associated with adverse health outcomes,” said Dr. Lokesh Shahani, Ph.D., associate professor of psychiatry at UTHealth Houston, who was not involved in the study.

“This study was particularly interesting as it demonstrated that lower social isolation or loneliness was associated with a decreased risk of all-cause mortality among people with obesity, and improvement of social isolation and loneliness attenuated obesity-related excess risk of all-cause mortality.”

– Dr. Shahani

What’s the link between obesity and social isolation?

If an individual doesn’t have a strong support system, it can lead to an increase in unhealthy behaviors, including diet.

“Obesity, social isolation, and loneliness are all associated with many health issues,” Dr. Shahani explained.

“A lack of social support may exacerbate the health-risk behaviors of people with obesity including smoking, inactivity, and unhealthy diets and might also neglect health-protective behaviors, such as adherence to medical recommendations.”

He continued: “Moreover, those who live alone or lack social contacts may be at a heightened risk of death if they develop acute symptoms because they might not have a strong network of confidantes to urge them to seek medical attention. Addressing social isolation and loneliness in individuals with obesity may potentially help improve unhealthy lifestyles, provide better psychological support, and encourage people at high risk to seek medical assistance when necessary.”

Dr. Scott Krakower, psychiatrist, Zucker Hillside Hospital of Northwell Health agreed:

“With improved socialization, participants may be more motivated by peers to engage in healthier behaviors. They may seek out treatments and be more likely to follow up with medical care.”

Tips for people who feel socially isolated 

There are numerous ways to foster connection with others.

“People who engage in meaningful, productive activities they enjoy with others feel a sense of purpose and tend to live longer,” said Dr. Shahani. “For example, helping others through volunteering helps you feel less lonely and allows you to have a sense of mission and purpose in life.”

He provided several other ideas to help people stay connected.

  • Find an activity that you enjoy, restart an old hobby, or take a class to learn something new. You might have fun and meet people with similar interests.
  • Schedule time each day to stay in touch with family, friends, and neighbors in person, by email, social media, voice call, or text. Talk with people you trust and share your feelings. Suggest an activity to help nurture and strengthen existing relationships. Sending letters or cards is another good way to keep up friendships.
  • Use communication technologies such as video chat, smart speakers, or even companion robots to help keep you engaged and connected.
  • Consider adopting a pet if you are able to care for them. Animals can be a source of comfort and may also lower stress and blood pressure.
  • Find a faith-based organization where you can deepen your spirituality and engage with others in activities and events.
  • Check out resources and programs at your local social service agencies, community and senior centers, and public libraries.
  • Join a cause and get involved in your community.

To improve socialization, Dr. Krakower recommended, “Try to understand what is driving you to be isolated and any fears which may get in the way of functioning.”

One technique may be opposite action, such as doing the opposite of what you normally do to get a response. In this case, leaving the home, even though you feel uncomfortable, would be a possible suggestion, he explained.

“Another way to improve socialization is to look for activities that may engage you. This could include anything from games to sports; or volunteering. While it is good to have in-person activities, the internet has allowed us to have ways to interact without leaving the home. This may include joining meet-up groups or other interesting get-togethers that may sound appealing.”

– Dr. Krakower

Limitations of this study

“There were few limitations to the study, although as noted data appeared to come from basic questions,” Dr. Krakower explained. “In addition, the population captured may not have been that varied. Also, certain markers like duration of time associated with social isolation were absent.”

“The study has several limitations to consider,” said Dr. Shahani.

“First, no data of duration of loneliness or social isolation and stability can be obtained from the UK Biobank cohort,” Dr. Shahani explained. “Further, the social isolation and loneliness indexes were constructed from simple questions, which might not fully capture the complex social networking and interaction phenomenon.”

Childhood Circumstances and Personality Traits Are Associated With Loneliness in Older Age

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Summary: A combination of personality traits and childhood circumstances account for why some older people experience loneliness more than others. Lonely adults over 50 were 1.24 times more likely to have rarely, or never, had comfortable friendships during childhood, and 1.34 times more likely to have had poor relationships with their mothers as children.

Source: PLOS

Life circumstances during childhood—including having fewer friends and siblings, low-quality relationships with parents, bad health and growing up in a poorer household—are all correlated with a higher rate of loneliness in older age, according to a new study published this week in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Sophie Guthmuller of Vienna University of Economics and Business, Austria.

Loneliness has been a growing topic of interest over the last decade, as it has been shown to be linked with ill health and to increase with age. Loneliness is correlated with a higher risk of developing mental conditions, a deterioration in physical health, and is linked to mortality and higher health care utilization.

In the new study, Guthmuller used data from the large cross-national Survey on Health, Ageing, and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), which collects information from individuals across Europe aged 50 and older on health, socioeconomic status, and social and family networks. Loneliness was measured with the R-UCLA Loneliness Scale.

Guthmuller found that while ill health is the main factor correlated with loneliness in older age, explaining 43.32% of the variance in loneliness, social support in older age also accounts for 27.05% of the variance, personality traits account for 10.42% and life circumstances during childhood account for 7.50%.

The odds of loneliness age 50 and over were 1.24 times higher for people who rarely or never had comfortable friends in childhood compared to those who more often had friends, 1.34 times higher in those who had a fair or poor relationship with their mother as a child compared to those with an excellent maternal relationship, and 1.21 times higher when one grew up in a household with poor wealth compared to those in a wealthy household.

Loneliness was more common in individuals with a neurotic personality (OR 1.20) and less common in those who scored highly for conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and openness.

This shows a child walking alone, carrying a stuffed lion
The odds of loneliness age 50 and over were 1.24 times higher for people who rarely or never had comfortable friends in childhood compared to those who more often had friends. Image is in the public domain

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Guthmuller points out that the findings of this study confirm the importance of social networks and support in older age, as well as the role of personality traits, and childhood circumstances. She concludes that early interventions are key to targeting later loneliness and that interventions aimed at increasing social support in later life need to be adapted to all personality types.

The author adds, “The study finds, as expected, that health status and social support at older ages are the two main factors correlated with loneliness at age 50+. Interestingly, the study reveals that personality traits and life circumstances during childhood are significantly associated with loneliness later in life, after controlling for a large set of later life conditions.

“In light of the trend of increasing childhood loneliness, and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on children’s life, the findings of this study confirms the importance of early life interventions to tackle long term effect on loneliness.”

Loneliness among older adults in Europe: The relative importance of early and later life conditions

The aim of this paper is to study the association between childhood circumstances and loneliness in older adults in Europe. Based on rich information collected by the Survey on Health, Ageing, and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) on childhood characteristics and individual characteristics at age 50+, the study is able to control for personality traits, socioeconomic and demographic factors, social support and health in later life, and country-specific characteristics.

The analyses show strong correlations between life circumstances in childhood and feeling lonely in older age; these correlations remain significant after adjusting for covariates.

While ill health is the main factor correlated with loneliness at 50+, as expected, the analysis of the relative importance of the determinants reveals that personality traits account for more than 10% of the explained variance and that life circumstances during childhood account for 7%.

Social support at older ages is the second highest category of factors, accounting for 27%—with, interestingly, support at home and social network characteristics contributing about 10% each, engaging in activities and computer skills accounting for 7% of the explained variance. Demographic and socioeconomic factors account for 6% and country-level characteristics contribute 5%.

This paper points out the relevance of early life interventions to tackling loneliness in older age, and it shows that early interventions and interventions aiming at increasing social support in later life need to be adapted to all personality types.

Thus, the role of childhood circumstances and the mechanisms explaining the association between loneliness in childhood and loneliness in later life deserve more attention in future research.

Loneliness May Triple Dementia Risk

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Even without dementia, lonely feelings linked with brain changes

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A senior man sits in a chair next to his bed and looks out the window.

Dementia incidence tripled in lonely older adults who otherwise would be expected to have relatively low risk based on age and genes, researchers found.

Lonely older people under age 80 without an APOE4 allele had a threefold greater risk of dementia (adjusted HR 3.03, 95% CI 1.63-5.62) over 10 years than similar people who weren’t lonely, reported Joel Salinas, MD, MBA, MSc, of NYU Grossman School of Medicine in New York City, and colleagues.

Regardless of age or APOE4 status, lonely older adults had a higher 10-year dementia risk compared with those who weren’t lonely (adjusted HR 1.54, 95% CI 1.06-2.24).

Among people without dementia, loneliness was associated with poorer executive function, lower total cerebral volume, and greater white matter injury, the researchers wrote in Neurology.

The study provides Class I evidence that loneliness increases the 10-year risk of developing dementia. “This magnifies the population health implications of observed trends in the growing prevalence of loneliness,” Salinas said.

“These findings not only establish the link between loneliness and dementia risk much more firmly, but also have implications for how we think about risk factors for dementia, the relevance of basic loneliness screening in assessing individuals at greater risk, and how there is a potential to underestimate this risk in lonely adults, especially if they don’t have any known genetic risk factors like the APOE4 allele,” Salinas told MedPage Today.

“Future studies need to clarify the underlying biological pathways involved, but there is much individuals can do now to help address loneliness in themselves, their friends and families, and their communities,” he added.

Health risks associated with social isolation and loneliness shifted to the forefront during the COVID-19 pandemic, but the biology of loneliness has been investigated for many years.

“The body treats loneliness as a state of threat and responds by activating defensive systems like the sympathetic nervous system, which in turn prompts the immune system to enhance inflammation,” observed Steve Cole, PhD, of the University of California Los Angeles, who wasn’t part of the study. “That’s one pathway by which social isolation could accelerate the progression of Alzheimer’s disease and other inflammation-related chronic diseases,” he told MedPage Today.

“However, it’s difficult to sort out the mechanisms involved in correlational studies such as this,” Cole pointed out. “We also know that inflammation alters brain function and social motivation, raising the possibility that early Alzheimer’s-related biological processes might actually promote loneliness and social isolation.”

“Regardless of the causal directions involved, this study adds to the growing body of evidence that social process and cognitive health are deeply linked and may open novel opportunities for maintaining cognitive health as we age,” Cole said.

Using prospectively collected data from the population-based Framingham Study, Salinas and colleagues assessed 2,308 participants who were dementia-free at baseline with an average age of 73. More than half (56%) were women and 80% of the cohort did not have an APOE4 allele.

Loneliness was recorded at baseline using the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D) and was defined as feeling lonely 3 or more days in the past week. Models were adjusted for age, sex, and educational level.

A total of 144 people (6%) were lonely. Over 10-year follow-up, incident dementia occurred in 14% of all participants and in 22% of lonely people.

There was no significant association between loneliness and dementia in people 80 or older, but lonely people who were younger — ages 60 to 79 — were more than twice as likely to develop dementia (adjusted HR 2.27, 95% CI 1.32-3.91).

In a second sample of 1,875 dementia-free, stroke-free Framingham Study participants with a mean age of 62, loneliness was associated with poorer cognition in the executive function domain. Of 1,611 people in this sample who had imaging, lonely participants had total cerebral volumes that were 0.25 standard deviation units (SDU) lower and white matter hyperintensity volumes that were 0.28 SDU greater.

These findings suggest that loneliness may be involved in the earliest stages of Alzheimer’s or dementia neuropathogenesis, Salinas and colleagues noted.

Like most Framingham Study cohorts, the ones used in this analysis included mainly people who were white. The possibility of reverse causality in this study cannot be ruled out, Salinas’ group acknowledged. Loneliness was slightly more prevalent among the oldest participants, but “it remains possible that ‘depression without loneliness’ had a more influential role than ‘loneliness without depression’ in this age group,” the researchers wrote.

Social isolation, loneliness drive CVD risk among older women

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Social isolation and loneliness are independently associated with an 11% to 16% higher risk for CVD among older women, according to research published in JAMA Network Open.

Natalie M. Golaszewski

“Social isolation and loneliness, while related to one another, are distinct social factors and our study showed that both factors are associated with increased risk for cardiovascular disease among older women,” Natalie M. Golaszewski, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow with the Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and Human Longevity Science, University of California, San Diego, told Healio. “The overall CVD risk was highest for women who had high social isolation and high loneliness.”

sad woman at window

In a prospective study, Golaszewski and colleagues analyzed data from 57,825 older women participating in the Women’s Health Initiative II study with no history of CVD at baseline (mean age, 79 years; 89.1% white). Participants completed questionnaires assessing social isolation and loneliness. The main outcome was major CVD, defined as CHD, stroke and CV death.

During 186,762 person-years, researchers observed 1,599 major CVD events.

Compared with women reporting low social isolation scores, women with high social isolation scores were 18% more likely to experience a major CVD event (HR = 1.18; 95% CI, 1.13-1.23). Similarly, women with a high loneliness score were 14% more likely to experience a major CVD event vs. those with low loneliness scores (HR = 1.14; 95% CI, 1.1-1.18). The risk was slightly attenuated but persisted after adjusting for health behaviors and health status, with an HR of 1.08 for women with a high vs. low social isolation score (95% CI, 1.03-1.12) and an HR of 1.05 for women with a high vs. low loneliness score (95% CI, 1.01-1.09).

Women with both high social isolation and high loneliness scores had a 13% to 27% higher risk for incident CVD compared with women with low social isolation and low loneliness scores. Social support was not a significant effect modifier of the associations.

“Both social isolation and loneliness are social factors that are important in the lives of patients and should be incorporated in clinical conversations and systematically measured in doctors’ offices,” Golaszewski told Healio. “It is important to further understand the acute and long-term effects of social isolation and loneliness on cardiovascular health and overall well-being.”

John Bellettiere

Causal information is also needed to confirm conclusions from the study that reducing social isolation and loneliness can reduce CVD, according to John Bellettiere, PhD, assistant professor of epidemiology at the Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and Human Longevity Science, University of California, San Diego.

“This could take the form of randomized clinical trials or causal evaluations of existing programs designed to reduce social isolation and loneliness such as programs in the U.K.,” Bellettiere told Healio.

DISTURBING report finds that 20 million American schoolchildren have been prescribed antidepressants

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Image: DISTURBING report finds that 20 million American schoolchildren have been prescribed antidepressants

In many ways the world is a far more complex, difficult place to live in now than it was 20 or 30 years ago. Social media places children under increasing pressure – and at an ever decreasing age – to look perfect, have limitless “friends” and lead apparently perfect lives. Many parents work longer hours than in previous decades, leaving them with little time and energy to spend with their kids. And children are under immense pressure to perform academically and on the sports field.

In previous years, kids could generally be found playing outside with their friends or chatting to them on the phone, but modern society leaves children isolated from one another, spending more time with virtual “friends” than real-life ones. Many spend most of their time online, hardly ever venturing outside.

This toxic mix of external pressures and isolation can leave children, particularly those struggling through adolescence, feeling depressed and confused. The solution for many parents and healthcare professionals is to simply prescribe them antidepressant medications like selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs). This “solution” is so widely favored, in fact, that a disturbing report by the Citizens Commission on Human Rights found that around 20 million American schoolchildren have been prescribed these dangerous drugs.

Antidepressant use in children rises sharply in seven years

Antidepressant medications are, in fact, not recommended for children under the age of 18, but you would never know that if you were to judge by the way doctors hand out prescriptions for these drugs like candy.

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According to the Daily Mail, a study recently published in the European Journal of Neuropsychopharmacology, which studied antidepressant use in children under the age of 18 in five western countries, found that there was an alarming increase in the number of prescriptions for these drugs between 2005 and 2012.

In Denmark, prescriptions for children increased by 60 percent; prescription numbers soared more than 54 percent in the United Kingdom; in Germany, they rose by 49 percent; the United States saw a 26 percent increase; and there was a 17 percent increase in antidepressant prescriptions for children in the Netherlands during that period.

This is shocking because a 2016 study published in the respected British Medical Journal, which evaluated the mental health of 18,500 children prescribed antidepressant medications, found that not only are the benefits of these drugs “below what is clinically relevant” (i.e. they don’t work), but children taking them are twice as likely to exhibit suicidal or aggressive behaviors than children who do not.

The study also found that the drug manufacturers are not only aware of this fact but that they actively try to hide the risks by labeling suicidal thoughts and suicide attempts as “worsening of depression” or “emotional liability” rather than admitting that they are side effects of the medication.

“Despite what you’ve been led to believe, antidepressants have repeatedly been shown in long-term scientific studies to worsen the course of mental illness — to say nothing of the risks of liver damage, bleeding, weight gain, sexual dysfunction, and reduced cognitive function they entail,” warned holistic women’s health psychiatrist, Dr. Kelly Brogan, writing for Green Med Info. “The dirtiest little secret of all is the fact that antidepressants are among the most difficult drugs to taper from, more so than alcohol and opiates.

“While you might call it ‘going through withdrawal,’ we medical professionals have been instructed to call it ‘discontinuation syndrome,’ which can be characterized by fiercely debilitating physical and psychological reactions. Moreover, antidepressants have a well-established history of causing violent side effects, including suicide and homicide. In fact, five of the top 10 most violence-inducing drugs have been found to be antidepressants.”

This doesn’t mean that our children need to be left to struggle through depression and isolation without any help, however. Experts recommend family, individual and other therapies, lifestyle changes including exercise and dietary changes, and spending more time outdoors with family and friends as healthy, side-effect-free ways to help kids cope.

Learn more about the dangers of antidepressant drugs at Psychiatry.news.

Sources include:

GreenMedInfo.com

Independent.co.uk

DailyMail.co.uk

ScienceDaily.com

How to redesign cities to fight loneliness

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Simple and smart ideas to create more connections in city life.

How to redesign cities to fight loneliness

Do you feel lonely? If you do, you are not alone. While you may think it’s a personal mental health issue, the collective social impact is an epidemic.

You may also underestimate the effects of loneliness. The health impact of chronic social isolation is as bad as smoking 15 cigarettes a day.

Loneliness is a global issue. Half a million Japanese are suffering from social isolation. The U.K. recently appointed a minister for loneliness, the first in the world. In Australia, Victorian state MP Fiona Patten is calling for the same here. Federal MP Andrew Giles, in a recent speech, said: “I’m convinced we need to consider responding to loneliness as a responsibility of government.”

What do cities have to do with loneliness? “The way we build and organize our cities can help or hinder social connection,” reads a Grattan Institute report.

Think of the awkward silence in a lift full of passengers who never communicate. Now think of a playground where parents often begin chatting. It’s not that the built environment “causes” interaction, but it can certainly either enable or constrain potential interaction.

Winston Churchill once observed that we shape the buildings and then the buildings shape us. I have written elsewhere about how architects and planners, albeit unwittingly, are complicit in producing an urban landscape that contributes to an unhealthy mental landscape.

Can we think of different ways to be in the city, of a different architecture that can “cure” loneliness?

Taking this question as a point of departure, I recently conducted a graduate design studio at the Melbourne School of Design. The students, using design as a research methodology, came up with potential architectural and urban responses to loneliness.

Have you ever waited at a rail station, killing time without engaging with the person next to you? Diana Ong retrofitted the Ascot Vale rail station with multiple “social engagement paraphernalia” to promote conversations and activity. Michelle Curnow proposed to convert train cars into “sensory experience cabins” that attract people to explore the in-built gallery spaces and listen to other people’s stories while commuting. Who said commuting had to be boring?

[Source Images: roberuto/iStock]

Having a pet is one of the most effective ways to tackle loneliness, but often people don’t have enough time to care for one. Zi Ye came up with “Puppy Society,” an app that connects a pet with multiple owners. The dogs are housed in a shared facility where the owners come to pet the dog.

Denise Chan studied the Melbourne CBD streets and found many of them are quite dead, despite being an icon of Melburnian liveliness. She reimagined the streets revitalized with community plant gardens, book nooks, and furniture to entice people to enter them and connect, say, during office lunch hours.

Are you one of those people who has a hard time eating alone? Fanhui Ding is, and she came up with a student-run restaurant for the University of Melbourne. Students get credit working on the aquaponic farms that supply the restaurant, which can be used to pay for a meal. People also get discounts for dining at the same table, encouraging students to interact over food. Given the many international students who suffer from loneliness, her concept used cooking, food, and farming as a therapeutic activity.

Beverley Wang looked at loneliness in the aging population. She came up with a project called “Nurture,” for which she designed a kindergarten co-housed with a nursing home. Designing spaces for storytelling, she brought the elderly into the kindergarten as informal learning aides, giving them a sense of purpose.

There is an utterly different kind of loneliness that accompanies the loss of a loved one. Malak Moussaoui, taking note of this, designed an installation that grows flowers on itself to be inserted into cemeteries. Instead of just buying some flowers on the way, Malak’s design is meant to bring people together, introduce flower gardening as a therapeutic measure and give people spaces to mourn together. They might then meet other people who share similar stories of loss and connect.

Other students tackled more familiar cases, such as designing more social interaction spaces in high-rise apartment buildings and redesigning supermarkets to make them places for people to visit on a Sunday morning. The student work can be viewed here.

Moving beyond merely analyzing the problems, the research output shows that an alternative, less lonely future is indeed possible. Without claiming to solve loneliness, design can be a important tool in response to it.

Humans Crave Connection: Why Loneliness is Dangerous to Health

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Humans are social animals. We naturally bond and pair as couples in partnerships and marriage. We live together as families and tribes, and we gather as communities. No doubt this is a manifestation of our spiritual selves which are never alone. This concept has many forms of dress. We call it our connection to God, or with our higher Self, or our oneness with Nature. In some religious traditions, we are all spiritual children of the Creator, or the Great Spirit. In others, as in Kabbalistic traditions, we originate from sparks of one light.

Humans Crave Connection Why Loneliness is Bad For Your Health Illness

This tradition offers a beautiful illustration of how we are connected to one Source. It tells of a Godhead, an infinite, all permeating light with no beginning or end that filled the entire universe with no empty space. Out of a divine will, the Infinite, contracted Itself unto Itself to create a space where there was only fullness. Ten vessels (Sefirot) were then formed to hold this light. These vessels are said to be filled with the light of ten attributes of how God reveals himself to us, and to Himself. The attributes are:

• Chochmah: wisdom
• Binah: understanding
• Daat: knowledge
• Chessed: kindness
• Gevurah: strength
• Tiferet: beauty
• Netzach: victory
• Hod: splendor
• Yesod: foundation
• Malchut: kingship

These attributes may also be viewed as longings we hold as humans. One could argue that these attributes are more easily understood in the context of a relationship than in separateness.

This story beautifully continues that the vessels were not able to hold such emanating light, and shattered. The resulting sparks created souls-the worlds we both know and don’t know, as well as humanity. In a much-oversimplified way, I am explaining that we are created from these sparks of everything, of the Will of God. That we are not alone. And in both physical and spiritual ways we, as humans and as souls, seek to connect with each other. We don’t always do it elegantly, but we are always seeking connection because it is our very nature to be connected.

When we are unable to make this connection, as in consequences of departing from nature, we suffer. The inability to connect causes loneliness, which we are finding has deep implications to our spiritual, mental and physical health.

The following outlines the ways loneliness affects our health:

Predictors of Loneliness

Loneliness is proven to be harmful to our health, and identifying these predictors early can keep us healthier for longer. A recent study, Correlates of social and emotional loneliness in older people: evidence from an English community study, randomly recruited around 1200 adults, aged 65 and older, from a sampling frame and were given a questionnaire to identify the precursors to loneliness. The study resulted in 7.7% of adults feeling severely lonely and 38% of adults were moderately lonely. “Being male, being widowed, low well-being, low self-esteem, low-income comfort, low contact with family, low contact with friends, low activity, low perceived community integration, and receipt of community care were significant predictors of social loneliness.” Identifying how chronic loneliness begins is key in preventing it from affecting your health.

Loneliness and Chronic Illness

Loneliness and Quality of Life in Chronically Ill Rural Older Adults is a study that surveyed 60 chronically ill people face-to-face in determining how loneliness and chronic illness correlate. Using the UCLA loneliness scale and the CASP-12 quality of life scale, the survey examined loneliness and quality of life, and using access to medical records, chronic illness diagnoses, chronic illness control measures, and medication use data were collected. It was found that “participants with a mood disorder such as anxiety or depression had the highest mean loneliness scores, followed by those with lung disease and those with heart disease. Furthermore, participants with mood disorders, lung disease, or heart disease had significantly higher loneliness scores than those without these conditions. Loneliness was significantly related to total number of chronic illnesses.”

Addictive Behaviour Related to Low Levels of the ''Love-Bonding Hormone'' Oxytocin 1
Related reading: Addictive Behavior Related to Low Levels of Oxytocin, the “Love/Bonding Hormone”

The study concluded nurses should assess patients with chronic illnesses for loneliness. The findings found loneliness to be a significant issue in rural, older adults, especially those who suffer with mood disorders, heart disease and lung disease.

Loneliness and Blood Pressure

70 million Americans struggle with high blood pressure each year, and the fact that loneliness affects blood pressure proves that socialization is truly beneficial for your health. Loneliness Predicts Increased Blood Pressure: Five-Year Cross-Lagged Analyses in Middle-Aged and Older Adults tested a multiracial group of 229 people for five years. The analyzed panel revealed that “loneliness at study onset predicted increases in [systolic blood pressure] 2, 3, and 4 years later. These increases were cumulative such that higher initial levels of loneliness were associated with greater increases in SBP over a 4-year period.” The study found that loneliness did not have a significant short-term effect on SBP, but loneliness was revealed to have a strong, obvious influence in larger increases of SBP over a four year period. A simple assessment of loneliness by questionnaire or interview could be sufficient to determine whether the patient should be referred to a clinical psychologist for therapy. Loneliness and high blood pressure have been known to increase mortality rates; however, simply decreasing loneliness in our day-to-day lives will keep us healthy and lengthen our life spans.

Loneliness and Fibromyalgia

Conducted last year, Loneliness, Daily Pain, and Perceptions of Interpersonal Events in Adults with Fibromyalgia examined loneliness and its effects on patients with fibromyalgia. This study observed whether individual differences in loneliness and/or daily exacerbations in loneliness relate to daily pain and frequency among people with fibromyalgia. 118 participants with fibromyalgia completed journals each evening for 21 days to assess the amount of positive and negative interpersonal events, event assessments, and pain. The reading concluded that “chronic and transitory loneliness were associated with more frequent reports of negative and less frequent reports of positive interpersonal daily events, higher daily stress ratings and lower daily enjoyment ratings, and higher daily pain levels.” Ultimately, the chronic and temporary episodes of loneliness are associated with more negative daily social relations and pain. Boosts in positive events were found to be like interventions for those with chronic pain.

Loneliness and Death

A newly published study, Loneliness and Mortality Among Older Adults in China, used data from a nationally representative sample of 14,072 adults aged 65 and older from the 2002, 2005, and 2008 waves of the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey to examine the relationships between loneliness and mortality. Ye Luo, author of the study, wrote, “About 28% of older Chinese adults reported feeling lonely, and lonely adults faced increased risks of dying over the subsequent years.

Loneliness both affects and is affected by social activities, solitary leisure activities, physical exercise, emotional health, self-rated health, and functional limitations over a 3-year period.” The study discovered that after taking social relationships into account, those with higher levels of loneliness tend to die earlier than those with lower levels. Behavioral and health outcomes at least moderately facilitate the effect of loneliness on mortality among older Chinese adults as we see attenuations of the direct effect of loneliness on death once behavioral and health variables were added.

Friends 'better than morphine' for pain - University of Oxford reports
Friends Provide Better Pain Relief Than Morphine, Oxford University Study Reveals

In addition, a meta-analytic review was conducted to determine the extent to which social relationships influence risk for mortality. Social Relationships and Mortality Risk: A Meta-analytic Review found that across 148 studies, there was a “50% increased likelihood of survival for participants with stronger social relationships…and the association was strongest for complex measures of social integration.” The analysis indicates that the influence of social relationships on the risk of death are not only comparable, but exceed, well-established risk factors for mortality-such as smoking, alcohol consumption, physical inactivity and obesity. The fact that loneliness is just as detrimental to our health as smoking and other dangerous activities illustrates how vital connection and companionship is, and why we crave it on such a fundamental level.

Separateness Equals Dis-ease

Loneliness is just one way that our environment can affect our biology. Our thoughts and emotions influence our health in many ways at a deep and cellular level. As many traditions suggest, we all originate from and connect to a life-source. In naturopathic medicine , which views the mind and body as inseparable, this is called the “Vis”, or Vital Force, which is the innate healing energy that propels us toward homeostasis and health; towards life!

A separation from each other is a separation from our selves and from our very life source. Loneliness and connection are as important factors of health as good nutrition or any tangible risk factor for disease.

Loneliness Is Bad For You, And This Study May Help Explain Why

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Feeling lonely may trigger changes in our cells that could make us more susceptible to illness.

Scientists have long known that spending time with loved ones is good for our long-term health and may reduce our risk of cognitive decline, whereas loneliness is linked to high blood pressure, inflammation and a weakened immune system.

But why exactly does loneliness have such bad effects on our health and well-being?

One reason, according to a new study, may have to do with the way loneliness triggers cellular changes in our bodies that can make us more susceptible to viral infections.

“Feeling lonely means you are not in a socially affine environment but rather in a relatively hostile environment,” Dr. John Cacioppo, a professor of psychology and behavioral neuroscience at the University of Chicago and a co-author of the study, told The Huffington Post in an email.

“In socially affine environments, protection against viral infections is especially important, whereas in hostile environments, protection against bacteria is important,” Cacioppo wrote. “The pattern of gene expression in the lonely [environment] decreases protection against viral infections and instead may increase protection against bacterial infections.”

In other words, as Live Science notes, the cellular changes that result in a shifttoward protection against bacteria may come at the cost of the ability to protect against viral infections.

For the study, researchers analyzed the regulation of the leukocyte gene — which is involved in protecting the body against both bacteria and viruses — in 141 older adult humans over a five-year period, and in a separate group of rhesus macaque monkeys that displayed behavior indicative of social isolation.

The researchers noticed increased activity in genes that produce inflammation in the body and less activity in genes that help to fight off illness in the adults who were lonely and in the monkeys, The Telegraph reported.

In the monkeys, researchers also found that loneliness causes the body to produce “fight-or-flight” stress signals, which can impair the body’s antiviral responses.

For instance, when the researchers infected monkeys with simian immunodeficiency virus, the virus grew faster in the monkeys that were classified as socially isolated than in monkeys that were not “lonely,” according to Live Science. This may be a result of the immune system releasing monocytes, a particular kind of immune cell linked to high levels of inflammatory proteins and low levels of antiviral proteins.

The researchers concluded that inflammation and impaired antiviral responses contribute to the bad health effects of loneliness. The findings appear to support previous research suggesting that for older adults, feelings of social isolation mayincrease the risk of premature death by 14 percent.

“This study specifically showed loneliness causes a physiological reaction in people,” Dr. Matthew Lorber, acting director of child and adolescent psychiatry at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, who was not involved in the new research, told CBS News.

“This is the first study I have seen that has actually gone into the details of showing loneliness leading to a decreased production of leukocytes (disease-fighting cells) and an increased production of immature monocytes,” Lorber said. “Leukocytes are what our body needs to fight infection. The fact that loneliness is leading to a decreased production of the leukocytes is really fascinating to me.”

But to be clear, the research doesn’t conclusively prove anything. The U.K.’s National Health Service pointed out in a blog post on Tuesday that “this study has not proved that socially isolated humans are more likely to become ill or die earlier. … Feelings of loneliness and social isolation can be complex emotions that may be influenced by many personal, health and life circumstances.”

Still, the NHS went on, “what is fairly apparent from this and previous research is that, whatever the biological mechanism(s) that may be behind it, loneliness and social isolation do seem to be associated in some way with disease and illness.”

The researchers said that they plan to continue examining how loneliness leads to poor health outcomes, and how these effects can be prevented in older adults.

How Loneliness Affects your brain.

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sanoop (CC BY 2.0)

It seems that loneliness can make us more “defensive,” which may perpetuate the cycle.

 

Loneliness makes the areas of the brain that are vigilant for threat more active, a new study finds.

This can make people who are socially isolated more abrasive and defensive — it’s a form of self-preservation.

This may be why lonely people can get marginalised.

Professor John Cacioppo, an expert on loneliness, speaking about an earlier study on the marginalisation of the lonely, said:

“We detected an extraordinary pattern of contagion that leads people to be moved to the edge of the social network when they become lonely.

On the periphery people have fewer friends, yet their loneliness leads them to losing the few ties they have left.

These reinforcing effects mean that our social fabric can fray at the edges, like a yarn that comes loose at the end of a crocheted sweater.”

The deadly truth about loneliness

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Almost all of us have experienced loneliness at some point. It is the pain we have felt following a breakup, perhaps the loss of a loved one, or a move away from home. We are vulnerable to feeling lonely at any point in our lives.

Loneliness is commonly used to describe a negative emotional state experienced when there is a difference between the relationships one wishes to have and those one perceives one has.

The unpleasant feelings of loneliness are subjective; researchers have found loneliness is not about the amount of time one spends with other people or alone. It is related more to quality of relationships, rather than quantity. A lonely person feels that he or she is not understood by others, and may not think they hold meaningful relationships.

For some people, loneliness may be temporary and easily relieved (such as a close friend moving away, or a spouse returning home after a work trip). For others, loneliness cannot be easily resolved (such as the death of a loved one or the breakup of a marriage) and can persist when one does not have access to people to connect with.

From an evolutionary point of view, our reliance on social groups has ensured our survival as a species. Hence loneliness can be seen as a signal to connect with others. This makes it little different to hunger, thirst or physical pain, which signal the need to eat, drink or seek medical attention.

In affluent modern societies, however, turning off the alarm signals for loneliness has become more difficult than satisfying hunger, thirst or the need to see the doctor. For those who are not surrounded by people who care for them, loneliness can persist.

Researchers have found social isolation is a risk factor for disease and premature death. Findings from a recent review of multiple studies indicated that a lack of social connection poses a similar risk of early death to physical indicators such as obesity.

Loneliness is a risk factor for many physical health difficulties, from fragmented sleep and dementia to lower cardiovascular output.

Some individuals may also be biologically vulnerable to feeling lonely. Evidence from twin studies found that loneliness may be partly heritable.

Multiple studies have focused on how loneliness can be a result of certain gene types combined with particular social or environmental factors (such as parental support).

Loneliness has largely been ignored as a condition of concern in mental health. Researchers have yet to fully understand the extent of how loneliness affects mental health. Most studies of loneliness and mental health have focused solely on how loneliness relates to depression.

Although loneliness and depression are partly related, they are different. Loneliness refers specifically to negative feelings about the social world, whereas depression refers to a more general set of negative feelings.

In a study that measured loneliness in older adults over a five-year period, loneliness predicted depression, but the reverse was not true.

Addressing loneliness

Loneliness may be mistaken as a depressive symptom, or perhaps it is assumed that loneliness will go away once depressive symptoms are addressed. Generally, “lonely” people are encouraged to join a group or make a new friend, on the assumption that loneliness will then simply go away.

While creating opportunities to connect with others provides a platform for social interaction, relieving the social pain is not so straightforward. Lonely people can have misgivings about social situations and as a result show rejecting behaviours. These can be misconstrued as unfriendliness, and people around the lonely person respond accordingly. This is how loneliness can become a persistent cycle.

A study examined the effectiveness of different types of treatments aimed at addressing loneliness. The results indicated that treatments that focused on changing negative thinking about others were more effective than those that provided opportunities for social interaction.

Another promising way to tackle loneliness is to improve the quality of our relationships, specifically by building intimacy with those around us. Using a positive psychology approach that focuses on increasing positive emotions within relationships or increasing social behaviours may encourage deeper and more meaningful connections with others.

Indeed, even individuals who have been diagnosed with serious mental illness have reported improvements in their well-being and relationships after sharing positive emotions and doing more positive activities with others. However, research using a positive psychology approach to loneliness remains in its infancy.

We continue to underestimate the lethality of loneliness as a serious public health issue. Contemporary tools such as social media, while seeming to promote social connection, favour brief interactions with many acquaintances over the development of fewer but more meaningful relationships. In this climate, the challenge is to address loneliness and focus on building significant bonds with those around us.

The growing scientific evidence highlighting the negative consequences of loneliness for physical and mental health can no longer be ignored.