Social isolation increases risk of early death, study finds

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People who are socially isolated are more likely to die prematurely, regardless of their underlying health issues, according to a study of the elderly in Britain.

By Geoffrey Mohan, Los Angeles Times
March 26, 2013

People who are socially isolated are more likely to die prematurely, regardless of their underlying health issues, according to a study of the elderly British population.

The findings, published online Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, showed that when mental and physical health conditions were factored out, the lack of social contact continued to lead to early death among 6,500 men and women tracked over a seven-year period.

"They're dying of the usual causes, but isolation has a strong influence," said study author Andrew Steptoe, an epidemiologist at University College London.

The study also appeared to diminish the role that subjective feelings of "loneliness," as opposed to the lack of social contact, may have on a person's life span. Both lead to higher mortality risks, the study noted, but the effect of feeling lonely diminishes once demographic and health factors are taken into account.

Regardless of the distinction, the study reinforces the need to increase social support for the elderly, even as it adds to debate over the intertwined effects of social contact and feelings of loneliness in old age. A similar look at retired Americans in 2012 reinforced multiple studies that link loneliness to numerous illnesses, including heart trouble and high blood pressure.

Both studies come as British and U.S. populations have become more solitary. People living alone compose more than a quarter of U.S households, and the proportion of Americans who said they had no one to talk to about important matters grew from 10% in 1985 to 25% in 2004, according to authors of the British study. A 2010 European survey revealed that more than a quarter of Europeans aged 50 and over reported that they met friends, colleagues or family less than once a month.

Separating the effects of loneliness from those of isolation, however, has not been easy for those who study rates of illness and death. While isolation can be measured directly — by how many friends you have or how often you have contact with family — loneliness is more subjective, measured through survey questions about whether social needs and expectations are being met.

Anyone familiar with Henry David Thoreau knows that isolation does not necessarily lead to loneliness, while the story of Marilyn Monroe shows that a strong social life can still leave you lonely.

A 1992 study of 2,000 heart patients suggested that having a confidant was more important than social links alone. It showed that relative mortality nearly tripled among those who had neither a partner nor a confidant, compared with those who had confidants (whether they were married or unmarried), according to the author of that study, Redford Williams, director of the behavioral medical research center at Duke University.

"There is something about not having social support — that is not acting through loneliness, nor through other health problems — that is contributing to mortality," Williams said.

Confusing the picture are studies that show loneliness leading to poor health, including higher blood pressure, heightened reaction to stress and altered immune responses, all of which can lead to higher mortality risk.

"Unfortunately in our study, we can't tell which comes first," Steptoe said. "We did know that lonely people did have more illnesses."

Last year's report on loneliness, based on the U.S. Health and Retirement Study, showed that loneliness appeared to increase mortality risk over a six-year period, an association that could not be attributed to social relationships or health behaviors, such as smoking and drinking.

Isolation may encourage poor lifestyle choices such as smoking, inactivity and unhealthy diets, which factor into mortality rates, said John Cacioppo, director of the Center for Cognitive and Social Neuroscience at the University of Chicago, an author of the 2012 study. He suggested that the British tradition of a "stiff upper lip" may mean Britons who live alone "are less likely to admit to feeling lonely than are residents of the U.S."

Nonetheless, Cacioppo said, "Whether or not loneliness predicts mortality in the UK, it most certainly does predict lower well-being, increased depressive symptomatology, and decreased cognitive functioning in older adults in the UK as well as in the U.S. This makes it important to address in the UK whether or not it predicts mortality."

Richard Suzman, director of the National Institute on Aging's division of behavioral and social research, said: "It may be that loneliness and ill health are much more entangled. The question is, does loneliness lead to ill health or is it that when you get ill you get more lonely — you don't get out, or people don't visit as much."

The National Institute on Aging, part of the National Institutes of Health, funded both the British study and last year's report on U.S. retirees.

Loneliness and isolation "should get lots of attention because they may be as important, as joint factors, as smoking," Suzman said.

Studies that involve interventions would help separate the different effects of loneliness and isolation, he added. "Isolation wins out this time, but I'd want an experiment to verify that."

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http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la- ... 0788.story

But this applies to the population generally, not Aspies. If you are NT and are socially isolated you are most likely to become depressed. If you are Aspie, you could also become depressed because you didn't like being isolated but I think there is a lot more likelihood that Aspies choose to isolate themselves from a hostile world. Trying to fit into society and maintain a mask and forcing yourself to socialise because it's expected, in the face of it not feeling right, is likely to cause high anxiety which is very unhealthy. Having to be out and about socialising with sensory issues also causes high anxiety.

I will review my opinion if they do a study only on Aspies and find the same results.

I thought it was common knowledge that as humans social isolation is bad for us.

Nothing new: a conclusion drawn from looking at NTs that is indiscriminately applied to auties. Of course, more socializing makes them happier and healthier so we should be pushed into it at all costs and no matter how we feel about it.

I'm not aware of such a study looking separately at people on the spectrum, but I suspect that, since socializing means something very different to us, being alone does, too.

I hate being lonely and I want friends.
I dread getting older and not being able to work but am rapidly approaching pension age.
I read this report and thought it would relate to me all too soon.

Laughter and sex are good for your health.. but personally I'm not depressed that I'm always alone, I only get mad at myself that I get so distracted by the internet xD

<--- Doomed.

I would guess the reasons attributed are suicide and you stop taking care of yourself so you get health problems and by the time anybody gives a crap about you, your health problems are so bad that you die.

when you find a reason to love yourself, you will take better care of yourself.

my therapist gave me the "humans are social creatures" speech on three separate occasions in the eight months I was doing CBT with her. the thing is I isolate myself because I feel even worse when I try to socialize, and fail, and be let down, betrayed, etc. It's too much. I can't handle the stress. I don't have the energy. And, more than that, I don't get the positive benefits of emotional reciprocity that NT people apparently get. That kind of connection is foreign to me.

Anyway, therapist and I finally settled on the idea that it might be beneficial for me to adopt a pet. a cat, or something relatively low maintenance along those lines. i think that I would like to do that in future but i cannot right now due to my apartment lease agreement (no pets allowed).

^^^
sounds like your therapist is one of those cookiecutter RET/CBT types that like to pound square pegs through small round holes, akin to the man with a hammer who has to hammer everything that looks like a nail. i sounds like you have issues that might be amenable to a rogerian therapist.

eh, it was okay. I wasn't seeing her for autism related things anyway. The CBT was for OCD, and for that she helped me a great deal.

In my opinion this only applies to those who aren't wired to be solitary. For me being solitary is my default mode. I don't really know what it is to be lonely or to pine for companionship. It's those who are wired to be social creatures and have a mate, who experience health loss if they are deprived of companionship.

They also say working the night shift, like from 12am to 8am, cuts your lifespan too. But I have delayed phase sleep syndrome. If I didn't have a job, I'd still be up until at least 6am before feeling sleepy and going to bed. But for those who have standard cicada rhythms, staying awake all knight when their internal clock is programed for them to be asleep, puts a strain on their health.