Does anyone have a link to the study or more info on how loneliness is the health equivalent of smoking like a pack of cigarettes a day?
I feel this applies to me.
Yes, here is the article posed to US senate aging committee:
In page 3 it states:
"The effect of social relationships can be benchmarked against other well-established lifestyle risk factors. As shown in Figure 1a, the
magnitude of effect of social connection on mortality risk is comparable, and in many cases, exceeds that of other well-accepted risk factors, including smoking up to 15 cigarettes per day, obesity, and air pollution [12]. "
To find the study the statement is based on, go to reference #12:
12. Holt-Lunstad, J., Smith, T. B., & Layton, J. B. (2010). Social relationships and mortality risk: a meta-analytic review. Plos Medicine, 7(7), e1000316-e1000316. doi: 10.1371/journal.pmed.1000316
If you google that, it will give you that full study:
In a meta-analysis, Julianne Holt-Lunstad and colleagues find that individuals' social relationships have as much influence on mortality risk as other well-established risk factors for mortality, such as smoking.
journals.plos.org
Results
Statistically nonredundant effect sizes were extracted from 148 studies (
[29]–
[176]; see
Table 1). Data were reported from 308,849 participants, with 51% from North America, 37% from Europe, 11% from Asia, and 1% from Australia.
Across all studies, the average age of participants at initial evaluation was 63.9 years, and participants were evenly represented across sex (49% female, 51% male). Of the studies examined, 60% involved community samples, but 24% examined individuals receiving outpatient medical treatment, and 16% utilized patients in inpatient medical settings. Of studies involving patients with a pre-existing diagnosis, 44% were specific to cardiovascular disease (CVD), 36% to cancer, 9% to renal disease, and the remaining 11% had a variety of conditions including neurological disease. Research reports most often (81%) considered all-cause mortality, but some restricted evaluations to mortality associated with cancer (9%), CVD (8%), or other causes (2%). Participants were followed for an average of 7.5 years (
SD = 7.1, range = 3 months to 58 years), with an average of 29% of the participants dying within each study's follow-up period.
Which concludes:
"The influence of social relationships on risk for mortality is comparable with well-established risk factors for mortality."
Now the real question, is given the average age used for the study was 64, does that mean that loneliness is more mortal to a person when they become older? Does loneliness of young adult incels will affect their mortality when they get older or can it be prevented if they do end up finding a partner by the time they get into their 60's?