Silent Epidemic: Loneliness a Serious Threat to Both Brain and Body

[erronis]

https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/silent-epidemic-loneliness-serious-threat-both-brain-and-2024a1000k2y
(This is behind a registration/login page. I recommend Medscape for those that want a good overview of current health issues.)

In a world that is more connected than ever, a silent epidemic is taking its toll. Overall, 1 in 3 US adults report chronic loneliness — a condition so detrimental that it rivals smoking and obesity with respect to its negative effect on health and well-being. From anxiety and depression to life-threatening conditions like cardiovascular disease, stroke, and Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases, loneliness is more than an emotion — it’s a serious threat to both the brain and body.

In 2023, a US Surgeon General advisory raised the alarm about the national problem of loneliness and isolation, describing it as an epidemic.

“Given the significant health consequences of loneliness and isolation, we must prioritize building social connection in the same way we have prioritized other critical public health issues such as tobacco, obesity, and substance use disorders. Together, we can build a country that’s healthier, more resilient, less lonely, and more connected,” the report concluded.

But how, exactly, does chronic loneliness affect the physiology and function of the brain? What does the latest research reveal about the link between loneliness and neurologic and psychiatric illness, and what can clinicians do to address the issue?

Medscape Medical News spoke to multiple experts in the field to explore these issues.

Interviews with the specialists follow.

Also recommended:
Loneliness: Time for Medicine to Address This Risk Factor

[jmbar2]

1. Depends on if you are an extrovert or not?

[usonian]

2. The Brits and French are all over this.

The urge to make insane amounts of money drives our culture to increasing separation and redundancy.

"Rugged individualism" is a sick hoax in almost all cases.

[erronis]

3. I suppose that it helps that they (the Brits and French) have decent health-care systems

systems that tend to treat the whole person including the social determinants.

[usonian]

5. Our national religion places money over people.

It serves the 1 percent.
Let's change that this very week.

[Gore1FL]

4. It's still an improvement over my marriage. nt

[keithbvadu2]

6. She outlived all her friends... She died on her cold kitchen floor and wasn't discovered for six months

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2726565/Old-age-curse-I-feel-like-half-dried-rug-purpose-rung-Heartbreaking-words-woman-outlived-loved-ones-lost-zest-life-dying-kitchen-floor.html

Her will was found with her friend's names written down as her next of kin and then crossed out as each one passed away.

She wrote of how Telstra disconnected her phone because she wasn’t using the specified amount calls of every month.

'I wasn’t getting calls from friends who are dead by now,' she explained in her notes.

[keithbvadu2]

7. One bit of our cultural lore is to live out your days in the family home.

One bit of our cultural lore is to live out your days in the family home.

It can turn out to be exactly that - 'live out your days'.

Sitting there alone waiting for friends and relatives to visit on a sporadic basis.

The mother of one of our members moved from the family farm/home to a senior community.
Might be a room or an apt/mini-apt.

Lots of activities and socialization, internal and short day trips.

She loves it and family can visit but daughter says might need an appt due to her own schedule.