Is the "deadly" due to an increase in confounding factors related to social isolation – drinking, lack of exercise, etc? Or does merely being alone, while still maintaining an otherwise healthy lifestyle, shorten life?
> In 1979, two epidemiologists published a paper that would trigger a seismic shift in the scientific community's understanding of and interest in the link between relationships and life span. Lisa Berkman, then at Yale University, and Leonard Syne at the University of California, Berkeley, followed nearly seven thousand adults for nine years. In that time period, men with fewer social and community ties were twice as likely to die—regardless of how physically healthy they were at the start of the study, their socioeconomic status, and whether they smoked, drank alcohol, were obese, exercised, or used preventative healthcare services. For isolated women, the risk of dying was closer to three times that of their connected counterparts.
lapcat|1 year ago
> In 1979, two epidemiologists published a paper that would trigger a seismic shift in the scientific community's understanding of and interest in the link between relationships and life span. Lisa Berkman, then at Yale University, and Leonard Syne at the University of California, Berkeley, followed nearly seven thousand adults for nine years. In that time period, men with fewer social and community ties were twice as likely to die—regardless of how physically healthy they were at the start of the study, their socioeconomic status, and whether they smoked, drank alcohol, were obese, exercised, or used preventative healthcare services. For isolated women, the risk of dying was closer to three times that of their connected counterparts.