Smoking, obesity, alcoholism: these are the first risk factors that come to mind when thinking about threats to health, especially in the elderly. But a new study conducted by the Regenstrief Institute and the Indiana University School of Medicine suggests that there is an even more insidious danger, often invisible but no less devastating: loneliness.
The findings of the research, which analyzed data collected during the COVID-19 emergency, are alarming and raise the need to consider social isolation as a serious public health problem.
Loneliness, this killer
Yes, you understood correctly. Loneliness, that sense of emptiness and abandonment that grips the soul, would be more lethal than cigarettes, fats and alcohol combined. The study published in the Journal of the American Geriatric Society (I link it here) was clear. Over 50% of over 65s feel lonely, and this condition has catastrophic effects on their health, both physical and mental.
It is as if loneliness were a silent killer, a killer that creeps into the lives of the elderly and slowly consumes them, day after day. A subtle enemy, which leaves no obvious traces but which corrodes the organism and the psyche with the same effectiveness as a poison.
The “biophysical stressor” that eats us from the inside
Researchers call loneliness a “biophysical stressor.” A technical term to describe deeply human suffering. Because loneliness is not just a passing emotion, a moment of melancholy. It is an existential condition that affects the flesh and spirit, which wears out immune defenses and the will to live.
The data are clear: among elderly people who suffer from loneliness, health outcomes are dramatically worse, regardless of demographic or pathological factors. It is as if social isolation were a multiplier of malaise, an accelerator of psychophysical decline.
The pandemic has shown the reality
COVID-19 has worsened the situation, forcing many elderly people into forced and prolonged isolation. But it would be reductive to put all the blame on the coronavirus. In reality, loneliness was already an epidemic before 2020, a silent plague afflicting a growing number of people in old age.
As the researcher explains Monica Williams-Farrelly, “Loneliness may seem simple to spot, but it can be complex to identify and address. It started to become a problem before COVID-19, and then the problem exacerbated.”
The researchers' appeal: let's treat loneliness like a disease
Faced with this emergency, the authors of the study launch a heartfelt appeal: it is time to consider loneliness as a serious risk factor for health, like smoking, obesity and alcoholism. It's time to investigate, measure, offer solutions. Before it's too late.
Based on the literature and research, loneliness has quite significant and strong influences on health. The same way we ask older people, 'Do you smoke? Do you measure blood sugar?' We should inform ourselves about loneliness, measure it and offer solutions.
Monica Williams-Farrelly, Indiana University School of Medicine
Let's be clear, fighting loneliness is not just the task of doctors or social services. It is a challenge that involves each of us, as individuals and as a society. The antidote to isolation is made of small daily gestures: a phone call, a visit, a smile. It's not just their health that's at stake. There is our humanity, our ability to care for each other.
And this, perhaps, is the greatest challenge of all.
