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Loneliness is bad for not just your mind, but your body as well
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Being lonely may be hazardous to your health. In a study published in Health Psychology, researchers at Carnegie Mellon University reported that lonely and socially isolated students had weaker immune responses to flu shots than their more outgoing peers.
The group, led by Sarah Pressman, a doctoral student, studied 83 healthy young men and women in their first year of college who received their first flu shots at a university clinic. The students first responded to questionnaires about their social lives, and then carried hand-held computers to record the degree of their feelings of isolation or loneliness for two weeks after they got the shots.
The researchers took blood samples to measure circulating antibodies before the inoculation, and then after one month and after four months. Having few social contacts and holding subjective feelings of loneliness were associated with weaker antibody responses to one component of the vaccine, the A/New Caledonia virus.
The researchers point out that loneliness and social isolation are two quite separate phenomena: a person can have few friends but still not feel lonely, or feel very much alone even when surrounded by friends. Although compromised immunity may be a health risk, Pressman is cautious about drawing conclusions. "At this point," she said, "we can't say that if you're lonely you're more likely to get sick. There is, however, evidence that loneliness is associated with poor health behaviours such as poor sleep and abnormal cardiovascular function." The scientists are unsure why isolation and loneliness are linked to the immune response, but they speculate that the psychological stress they cause may be a factor.
Courtesy: New York Times
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