Is being a Bachelor making you more at risk of a premature death?

• University of Copenhagen researchers analyzed health data from thousands of men and women in Denmark.
• They found men who went through more breakups and lived alone for years were more likely to have higher inflammation levels in their bodies. There was no difference for women.
• Higher inflammation levels can contribute to a person's risk of developing diabetes, heart disease, and cancer.

According to a meta-analysis co-authored by Julianne Holt-Lunstad, PhD, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Brigham Young University, lack of social connection heightens health risks as much as smoking 15 cigarettes a day or having alcohol use disorder. She’s also found that loneliness and social isolation are twice as harmful to physical and mental health as obesity (Perspectives on Psychological Science , Vol. 10, No. 2, 2015).

"There is robust evidence that social isolation and loneliness significantly increase risk for premature mortality, and the magnitude of the risk exceeds that of many leading health indicators," Holt-­Lunstad says.

Other scientists have researched the effects of perceived social isolation across our life span, where loneliness can wreak havoc on an individual’s physical, mental and cognitive health (Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B , Vol. 370, No. 1669, 2015). The evidence linking perceived social isolation with adverse health consequences including depression, poor sleep quality, impaired executive function, accelerated cognitive decline, poor cardiovascular function and impaired immunity at every stage of life. In addition, a 2019 study led by Kassandra Alcaraz, PhD, MPH, a public health researcher with the American Cancer Society, analyzed data from more than 580,000 adults and found that social isolation increases the risk of premature death from every cause for every race (American Journal of Epidemiology , Vol. 188, No. 1, 2019). According to Alcaraz, among black participants, social isolation doubled the risk of early death, while it increased the risk among white participants by 60 to 84 percent.

Reference:

https://jech.bmj.com/content/76/5/490