Loneliness 'may affect the immune system'"Being lonely won't just make you miserable; it could also suppress your immune system and knock years of your life," the Daily Mail reports.
This headline was prompted by a laboratory study in humans and rhesus macaque monkeys, which aimed to investigate if there were biological mechanisms associated with isolation that could also be associated with the risk of chronic disease or early death.
The findings suggest increased activity of the sympathetic nervous system – responsible for the "fight or flight" response – may overstimulate development of inflammatory white blood cells in the bone marrow. At the same time it may decrease the production of antiviral proteins, reducing the body's ability to fight infections.
However, at this stage this is still just a hypothesis. The study has not directly demonstrated that people who are socially isolated are more likely to become ill or die earlier and the immune system played a key role. NHS Choices
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