Loneliness and unhappiness worse for health than smoking: study

Loneliness has recently been called an epidemic in the US — and for good reason.

Researchers from Deep Longevity, Stanford University and the Chinese University of Hong Kong studied the impact of loneliness, restlessness and unhappiness on the aging body.

Their findings suggested that these negative emotional predicaments may have a greater effect on health than smoking tobacco.

The shocking study published in the journal Aging shows that being lonely and unhappy ages a person faster than smoking. Loneliness, unhappiness and hopelessness added up to a year and eight months to someone’s age — five months more than smoking.

“Your body and soul are connected — this is our main message,” said Fedor Galkin, a co-author of the study and lead scientist at the Hong Kong startup Deep Longevity.

The researchers studied 12,000 middle-aged and elderly Chinese adults, a third of whom had major underlying conditions such as liver and lung disease, cancer and history of stroke. The participants were surveyed on factors such as demographics, social environment, psychological circumstances and whether they are a current smoker. Along with the surveys, scientists used blood samples and medical data to create a model that would tell them the participants’ biological age.

The concept of a biological age estimates the body’s decline in terms of chronological years, concerning factors such as genetics, lifestyle, blood, kidney status and Body Mass Index (also known as BMI). The current article dealt with a newly developed calculation for biological age, called an aging clock, which detects accelerated aging. If the person’s biological age is older than their actual chronological age, their body is theoretically worse off than it should be.

Researchers compared participants’ test results, matching them by chronological age and gender to see which factors made people age faster.

Feeling lonely or unhappy was found to be the most significant factor of rapid decline, increasing one biological age by 20 months. Smoking followed by adding about one year and three months to one’s age.

“We conclude that the psychological component should not be ignored in aging studies due to its significant impact on biological age,” the researchers wrote.

There were other factors involved in increasing biological decline. Being male added five months to someone’s age; living in a rural area — due to low availability of medical services — added four months; and never getting married added nearly four months — and has long been thought of as being connected to an early death. 

“Mental and psychological states are some of the most robust predictors of health outcomes — and quality of life — and yet they have been omitted from modern health care,” said Manuel Faria, co-author of the study and a researcher at Stanford.

Because the study only looked at middle-aged to elderly adults, it’s unclear if the same results would effect younger groups as well.