Loneliness is no fun. Turns out, it’s no good for your physical health either. Researchers at Ohio State University have recently discovered that the more lonely a person is, the greater the toll on their immune system. Essentially, loneliness is equivalent to chronic stress.
So how do you measure loneliness? When you’re a scientist, you use the UCLA Loneliness Scale. Essentially, it’s a questionnaire fine-tuned to measure a person’s perception of loneliness and social isolation.
In addition to assessing this, researchers took blood samples from the participants, who were all middle-aged breast cancer survivors. In general, the majority of Americans are infected by herpes viruses such as the cytomegalovirus. Usually, this virus is dormant – it hangs-around without doing any harm. When the body’s immune system is weakened, the virus takes advantage of the situation starts causing trouble. This puts our body’s defense system on alert, causing it to produce foot soldiers known as antibodies. Scientists measured the blood samples to determine the amount of cytomegalovirus-targeted antibodies. More antibodies = more viruses taking advantage of a weakened immune system.
The result? Increased loneliness = a weakened immune system. This was also linked to an increased likelihood of depression, fatigue, and pain in participants. Essentially, loneliness had the same effect on the body as chronic stress. These results support previous research that link poor-quality relationships to health problems. So what is a person to do? Perhaps bundle up inside with a good group of friends and have a good laugh about how lonely these winter months can be.
