Humans are emotional creatures. Some more so than others. We have our ups and downs, and expect to feel the spectrum of emotions as a normal part of life. But just because these emotions may be normal for most of us, that doesn’t mean they’re harmless…
Especially loneliness. For older adults, loneliness is proving to be a killer.
For some time, research has shown that loneliness presented a real danger, but until now scientists didn’t really understand why. Was it a detrimental side effect of depression? Not close.
It turns out that loneliness actually triggers several physiological responses in the human body that can make you physically sick — starting with inflammation — and ultimately lead to a shorter life.
What loneliness does to your body
Inflammation is a natural response your body has to stress. For example, if you eat something too spicy, you may experience inflamed intestines. Such acute inflammation arises quickly and generally dissipates after a normal period of time.
However, inflammation that is chronic and low-grade or not externally apparent is cause for concern, like the inflammation that can occur with loneliness. It can interfere with the bodies normal processes and diminish its ability to maintain healthy functioning systems.
That’s exactly what a group of researchers [1] from University of Chicago and the California National Primate Research Center saw in both humans and rhesus macaques — a species of highly social primates. They found that loneliness was linked with a phenomenon called “conserved transcriptional response to adversity” (CTRA) — a type of fight-or-flight stress signal to the body — which causes an increased expression of genes involved in inflammation, while decreasing expression of genes involved in antiviral responses.
In other words, lonely people have a less effective immune response and more inflammation.
The same group of researchers ran a second study to see the impact of loneliness on leukocyte cells — the cells of the immune system that are involved in protecting the body against bacteria and viruses.
Not surprisingly, the leukocyte cells showed the same effects of CTRA involving an increase in inflammation gene expression and a decrease in antiviral responses. But the researchers also found levels of the fight-or-flight neurotransmitter, norepinephrine, to be present. And this was a big clue as to what was causing the inflammation.
Norepinephrine stimulates the production of a particular kind of immune cell — an immature monocyte cell that shows high levels of inflammatory gene expression and low levels of antiviral gene expression. Both the lonely humans, and as well as the lonely monkeys, showed high levels of these cells in their blood.
Together, these findings support how loneliness results in fight-or-flight stress signaling, which increases the production of immature monocytes, causing increased inflammation and impaired anti-viral responses. These “danger signals” activated in the brain by loneliness ultimately affect the production of white blood cells.
Just as disturbing is the reciprocal relationship the researcher discovered between loneliness and CTRA. Each appears to propagate the other. They found that loneliness predicted future CTRA gene expression measured a year or more later, and as well, CTRA gene expression predicted loneliness measured a year or more later.
All of this comes together to increase risk of death for older people by at least 14 percent. But all is not lost…
Reducing loneliness can increase happiness and lifespan
In a study, [2] published in Brain, Behavior and Immunity, researchers found that the program of mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) — which teaches how to focus on the present as opposed to dwelling on the past or projecting the future — was a great way to reduce loneliness. More impressively, the researchers found that the technique also altered the expression of inflammation-producing genes linked to heart disease risk.
“Our work presents the first evidence showing that a psychological intervention that decreases loneliness also reduces pro-inflammatory gene expression,” says senior study author Steve Cole, a UCLA professor of medicine and psychiatry. “If this is borne out by further research, MBSR could be a valuable tool to improve the quality of life for many elderly.”
The meditation program in the study included weekly two-hour meetings that taught meditation technique, a single day-long retreat and daily meditation for 30 minutes. The researchers believe that other meditative exercises like yoga and tai chi can also produce significant benefits.
For more tips on beating loneliness, click here and here.
[1] http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-11/uoc-ltc112015.php
[2] http://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/meditation-reduces-loneliness-237463
