According to University of Chicago researchers, people who are alone and feel lonely have suppressed immune systems. The consequence of this is a reduced ability to fight diseases with the same efficiency as those capable of more robust immune responses.
Studies show, according to The Daily Telegraph, both men and women, who are aged over 50, have a more active immune response called CTRA (“conserved transcriptional response to adversity”). The response is triggered via the sympathetic nervous system (which is involved in the “flight or fight”, triggered in response to different situations.)
This response, according to a research note, “is characterized by an increased expression of genes involved in inflammation and a decreased expression of genes involved in antiviral responses.” The first part of the study involved 141 people taking part in the Chicago Health, Aging and Social Relations Study (CHASRS).
The second part of the study looked at monkeys. The research goes on to show, based on the studies in macaques, that changes to CTRA lead to a mammalian body being more prone to viruses. This was shown by injecting monkeys with and without elevated CTRA to see how they responded to infections.
The research has led parts of the more sensationalist media, including The Daily Mail, to make unsupported interpretations of the research, like “Loneliness is twice as bad as obesity for killing us early: Being isolated suppresses your immune system and knocks years off your life.”
The connection between alterations to genes in people and ill-health effects in monkeys is not directly causal. While the researchers may be correct in the link between CTRA and immune responses, the sole trigger for “loneliness” is not necessarily proven and the research remains a theory. . The study has not demonstrated that people who are socially isolated (and lonely) are more likely to become ill due to the way their immune system functions differently than those who live in family units or are not lonely.
The findings are published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, in a paper headed “Myeloid differentiation architecture of leukocyte transcriptome dynamics in perceived social isolation.”
