Findings published this week in the journal Heart demonstrate that loneliness and isolation are as serious a risk factor for stroke and heart disease as anxiety and a stressful job. The findings open a debate about how society and the medical community should respond.

Share on Pinterest The true impact of loneliness is only beginning to be uncovered.

Physical inactivity and obesity are well-known risk factors for a reduction in lifespan.

Researchers have uncovered a wealth of information on how those, and other common factors, directly impact health and longevity.

Loneliness and isolation, however, appear to be just as destructive to an individual’s health, but little research has been launched to investigate the scope of their influence.

Early research has provided a basic framework to explain how a person’s social relationships (or lack thereof) can impact their health.

The factors are essentially split into three headings:

Behavioral: health-risk behaviors related to loneliness and isolation, including increased sedentary behavior and smoking

health-risk behaviors related to loneliness and isolation, including increased sedentary behavior and smoking Psychological: loneliness is linked to lower self-esteem, depression and sleep problems

loneliness is linked to lower self-esteem, depression and sleep problems Physiological: isolation and loneliness has been linked to a reduced immune response and higher blood pressure.

Existing research shows that isolation can lead to premature death, and as such, addressing loneliness could be of huge benefit to public health and well-being at large.

The current study, conducted by Dr. Nicole Valtorta at the Department of Health Sciences, University of York, UK, set out to understand loneliness and its consequences for health in more detail.

Dr. Valtorta and her team specifically investigated the links between deficiencies in social relationships and the incidence of coronary heart disease and stroke, two conditions that are the greatest cause of disease burden in the Western world.