The Health Risks

According to the research of Julianne Holt-Lunstad, professor of psychology and neuroscience at Brigham Young University, and colleagues, the heightened risk of mortality from loneliness equals that of smoking 15 cigarettes a day or being an alcoholic, and exceeds the health risks associated with obesity. Researchers are now actively studying the mechanisms by which loneliness affects health, including its relationship with inflammation and harmful changes in DNA expression. “So what we are looking at is whether some people are in a chronic state of mild inflammation.”