Loneliness is as harmful as smoking

Loneliness damages the immune system and is about as harmful as smoking or obesity.

(27.07.2010) Lonely people often have depression, retreat into their own world and suffer from a lack of social contacts. This also damages the health and promotes the risk of dying, as a US study found out.

The „Brigham Young University“ in Utah refers to a recent review of studies published on this topic. According to the researchers, permanent loneliness damages the human immune system and is considered as dangerous as smoking, unhealthy eating or lack of exercise.

The researchers analyzed the data from 148 studies and evaluated the results of about 300,000 subjects. The results were in the trade magazine „PLoS Medicine“ released. All studies were conducted in western industrial nations. The average age of participants was 64 years. According to study results, people with extensive intact social contacts have a 50 percent chance of survival compared to people with a low social background. This surpasses even the risk factors caused by smoking, obesity and physical inactivity, the researchers say.

During the course of the study, the subjects were observed for an average of 7.5 years. The result was always the same, although other factors such as age, gender and income were taken into account. Doctors should not only be sensitive to older patients who have little social contact. For the biggest effect of all factors examined was the "general social integration", at least was crucial, whether people lived alone or with someone.

"Physicians, health professionals, educators and the media take factors such as smoking, nutrition and sports very seriously: The data presented here provide a valid argument to add the social factors to this list," argue the authors of the study. Because an intact social environment can also help in the management of stress and depressive moods (depression). This has positive effects on one's own health. In addition, some studies have shown that social contacts also strengthen the human immune system. The body can defend with a strengthened immune system permanently better pathogens.

Social contacts can therefore make a decisive contribution to improving the quality of life and minimizing the risk of dying, the researchers emphasize. Preventive health care should not end up just looking at the clinical picture of a disease, but include the general wellbeing of the human being. Doctors should therefore encourage patients to start social networks.

The study is another argument for a holistic view of well-being. Accordingly, it is not just purely medical considerations that are helpful in promoting human health. It also depends on the personal circumstances in which the person is and what other factors favor a disease. In the everyday life of conventional medicine, such factors are often excluded. The only issue here is to make a diagnosis and to administer appropriate treatment primarily with medicines. There is no room for the life and suffering faces. Complementary medicine, on the other hand, focuses on all interrelations and directs its view to the wholeness of the human being. In naturopathy, there is no specialization in specialist fields, as according to the clinical picture, e.g. in homeopathy never gets an organ, but always the whole person. (Sb)

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