New Research Says Loneliness Is Bad For Health

By Author: Philbert Manalo
Total Articles: 78
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Some technology and health blogs are currently focused on a new study suggesting that loneliness is not only affecting your relationship with others, but it also affects your health.
The annual meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology on January 19, 2013 presented a new study suggesting that lonely people are more likely to produce inflammatory response to stress, a factor implicated in heart disease and other chronic disease.
Report says the test was conducted with 200 female breast cancer survivors with an average of 51 and 134 overweight and middle-aged adults with no major health problems. In the first study, researchers analyzed the blood of the breast cancer survivors for antibodies against cytomegalovirus (CMV) after they answered questions regarding their loneliness. The results revealed that the lonelier the participant, the higher the levels of cytomegalovirus antibodies in the blood.
In the second study, the researchers measured inflammatory proteins called cytokines in 144 of the breast cancer survivors as well as the healthy but overweight ...
... middle-age adult participants. The participants were asked to give blood samples then were asked to give an impromptu speech and answer difficult math problems in front of a panel in white lab coats. To add pressure to the test, no encouragement was given to the participants.
The second test showed that the lonelier participants have the higher the levels of cytokine interleukin-6 after the stressful speech. This cytokine is being noted to be essential for healing in the short term because it promotes inflammation. However, when cytokines react too readily, inflammation can be harmful. Chronic inflammation has been linked to coronary heart disease, arthritis, Type 2 diabetes and even suicide attempts.
As a conclusion, the study noted that lonely people experience more reactivation of latent viruses in their systems than the socially-connected. They are also more likely to produce inflammatory compounds in reaction to stress than those who are not. This factor is being connected with heart disease and other chronic disorders.
Solving the problem may include encouraging lonely people to seek out for more friends, as even older researches from technology and health blogs show its importance but it may not be the only solution. As researchers were able to find the connection between loneliness and a poor health, they may also be able to find some possible and helpful solutions and treatments that can help.