Loneliness is Associated with Higher Inflammation

VitalityExplorers.com

🎧 Listen to Learn why Smiling Enhancing Happiness 😃

Inflammation is the enemy of our vitality.

It is associated with a variety of serious diseases such as cancer, heart disease and diabetes. Reducing inflammation is a key to healthy longevity.

Vital people do whatever they can to decrease their inflammation.

This leads to an important study about how loneliness is associated with higher inflammatory blood markers. This post will explore the study and also discuss specific actionable ways to cultivate closeness and comradery.

Step one is to define loneliness. Here is the paper’s definition:

“Loneliness is defined as a subjective, unpleasant psychological state of feeling alone that stems from a discrepancy between desired and actual social relationships.” (See reference below)

Loneliness is associated with an increased risk of depression, cardiovascular disease and all-cause mortality. It is clearly not good for you. A growing body of evidence suggests that inflammation is one of the connections between loneliness and disease.

Here are the primary conclusions from the paper:

“We observed significant associations between both loneliness measures and CRP, controlling for age, race, BMI, and depressive symptoms.”

The study included 222 socially, racially and economically diverse individuals from the Bronx in New York that were older adults.

CRP, also known as C-Reactive Protein is a validated blood measurement of inflammation. Your liver releases this protein into the bloodstream in response to inflammation. The levels are normally low.

Some inflammation is required to survived. It is a natural response to an injury or the threat of an infection. Your skin heals via a controlled inflammatory process after a cut. Too much inflammation or chronic inflammation, however is bad for your health.

Loneliness is not a physical threat but it can trigger our autonomic nervous system. This can lead to “greater inflammatory responses to acute psychologic stress” according to the paper.

Loneliness was measured using the UCLA Three Item Loneliness Scale. (See below)

Vitality Explorer Analysis and Recommendations

This paper provides robust evidence to suggest loneliness in older adults is associated with inflammatory blood markers. It should drive us to address the epidemic of loneliness that exists within our society especially after the COVID-19 pandemic.

Combating loneliness could lead to lower levels of chronic disease and death. This should make it a primary priority for health care systems and public health institutions.

We can also make a difference on a personal level. Below are my top four ways to cultivate closeness with others:

Cultivating closeness and comradery is part of my work with Vitality Explorers. I teach it in my Stanford course called ENERGIZE Your Life.

I believe closeness is a fundamental component of our vitality.

Please post your comment below and please share this post with your network.

Paid subscribers can review the slides from my Stanford course below. They review more data about why closeness is crucial to your vitality and how to enhance it. The full abstract and other references are also below.

Please consider becoming a paid subscriber to help support the work of Vitality Explorers.

Our simple but critical mission is to “Enhance Global Vitality, One Person at a Time.