Loneliness is injurious to health, especially in old age

22 August, 2007:

Social isolation (loneliness) and physical ageing can prove to be a destructive combination, resulting in more stress hormones flowing through the body.

A recent study conducted by Louise Hawkley and John Cacioppo, psychologists of the University of Chicago, the United States, has shown that the toll of loneliness may be placid and unremarkable in early life, but may go up with time.

The researchers, who reported their findings in the August 2007 issue of Current Directions in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, studied college-age individuals and adults aged 50 to 68.

After examination, they found that the more years one lives, the more stressful situations one will experience – such as new jobs, marriage and divorce, parenting, financial worries or illness.

When the psychologists looked at the lives of the middle-aged and old people in their study, they found that though the lonely ones reported the same number of stressful life events, they identified more sources of chronic stress and recalled more childhood adversity. Moreover, they differed in how they perceived their life experiences.

The researchers report that, even when faced with similar challenges, the lonelier people appeared more helpless and threatened. They were also less likely to seek meaningful help when stressed.

As the body’s stress hormones are deeply involved in fighting inflammation and infection, it is apparent that loneliness contributes to the wear and tear of ageing through this pathway as well.

When people experience stress, the bodies normally rely on restorative processes like sleep. But when the researchers monitored the younger volunteers’ sleep, they found that the nights of the ‘lonely’ were broken by many ‘micro awakenings.’

Louise Hawkley and John Cacioppo took urine samples from both the lonely and the more contented volunteers, and found that the lonely ones had more of the hormone epinephrine – one of the body's ‘fight or flight’ chemicals – flowing thought their bodies.

The study also found that people who felt cut off, disconnected, and alienated from others not only experienced a mental impact but also a biological impact – lonely people go through life in a heightened state of arousal. As with blood pressure, this physiological toll, in all probability, becomes more apparent with ageing.