Loneliness and neuroendocrine, cardiovascular, and inflammatory stress responses in middle-aged men and women

Steptoe, Andrew; Owen, Natalie; Kunz-Ebrecht, Sabine; Brydon, Lena

doi:10.1016/s0306-4530(03)00086-6

Cited by 475 publications

(437 citation statements)

References 63 publications

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“…The soluble protein fibrinogen, which permits wound healing in health and thrombosis in disease, is a marker for both coronary risk [16] as well as self-reported isolation and stress [18,20], but has not previously been studied in relation to a sociocentric measure of connectedness. Here, we report on the relationship between degree centrality and levels of fibrinogen in a large human social network.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Social connectedness is associated with fibrinogen level in a human social network

et al. 2016

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Socially isolated individuals face elevated rates of illness and death. Conventional measures of social connectedness reflect an individual's perceived network and can be subject to bias and variation in reporting. In this study of a large human social network, we find that greater indegree, a sociocentric measure of friendship and familial ties identified by a subject's social connections rather than by the subject, predicts significantly lower concentrations of fibrinogen (a biomarker of inflammation and cardiac risk), after adjusting for demographics, education, medical history and known predictors of cardiac risk. The association between fibrinogen and social isolation, as measured by low indegree, is comparable to the effect of smoking, and greater than that of low education, a conventional measure of socioeconomic disadvantage. By contrast, outdegree, which reflects an individual's perceived connectedness, displays a significantly weaker association with fibrinogen concentrations.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Fibrinogen has been linked to low occupational status, education and sense of control [18], as well as to perceptions of being socially undermined [19], and to self-reported loneliness and isolation [20].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Social connectedness is associated with fibrinogen level in a human social network

et al. 2016

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“…• Diminished physical activity 13 • Diminished motor function 14,15 • Symptoms of depression 16 • Disrupted sleep and daytime dysfunction 17 • Impaired mental and cognitive function 18 • Increased systolic blood pressure 19 • Increased sympathetic tone and vascular resistance 20,21 • Increased hypothalamic pituitary adrenocortical activity 22,23 • Altered gene expression related to anti-inflammatory responses 24 • Altered immunity 25,26 Of greater concern, however, is an accumulating volume of research that highlights loneliness as a risk factor for both functional decline as well as increased mortality. 4,8,[27][28][29] In short, there is evidence that the subjective experience of loneliness can significantly contribute to premature death independently of other physical, behavioral, or psychological factors.…”

Section: Effects Of Lonelinessmentioning

confidence: 99%

Loneliness and Social Isolation: Risk Factors Long Overdue for Surveillance

Alspach¹

2013

Critical Care Nurse

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“…Studies designed to identify the mechanisms underlying the association between loneliness and mortality have found that loneliness is associated with increased hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical (HPA) activity (Adam et al, 2006;Cacioppo et al, 2006;Doane and Adam, 2010;Glaser et al, 1985;Kiecolt-Glaser et al, 1984;Steptoe et al, 2004), altered gene expression indicative of decreased inflammatory control and increased glucocorticoid insensitivity (Cole et al, 2007(Cole et al, , 2011, increased inflammation, elevated vascular resistance, and blood pressure (Hackett et al, 2012;Hawkley et al, 2006Hawkley et al, , 2010bJaremka et al, 2013), higher rates of metabolic syndrome (Whisman, 2010), diminished immunity (Dixon et al, 2006;Glaser et al, 2005;Kiecolt-Glaser et al, 1984;Pressman et al, 2005;StraitsTröster et al, 1994), increased risk for age-related cognitive decline and dementia (Wilson et al, 2007), and increased sleep fragmentation (Cacioppo et al, 2002;Hawkley et al, 2010a;Jacobs et al, 2006;Kurina et al, 2011). Cross-lagged panel analyses have also shown that loneliness has also been associated with changes in psychological states that can contribute to morbidity and mortality, including increased depressive symptomatology (Booth, 2000;Cacioppo et al, 2006Cacioppo et al, , 2010VanderWeele et al, 2011), lower subjective wellbeing (Kong and You, 2013;VanderWeele et al, 2012), heightened vigilance for social threats (Cacioppo et al, 2015b), and decreased executive functioning (Baumeister and DeWall, 2005;Cacioppo et al, 2000;…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Genome-Wide Association Study of Loneliness Demonstrates a Role for Common Variation

Gao

Davis

Hart

et al. 2016

Neuropsychopharmacol

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Loneliness is a complex biological trait that has been associated with numerous negative health outcomes. The measurement and environmental determinants of loneliness are well understood, but its genetic basis is not. Previous studies have estimated the heritability of loneliness between 37 and 55% using twins and family-based approaches, and have explored the role of specific candidate genes. We used genotypic and phenotypic data from 10 760 individuals aged ⩾ 50 years that were collected by the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) to perform the first genome-wide association study of loneliness. No associations reached genome-wide significance (p45 × 10 − 8 ). Furthermore, none of the previously published associations between variants within candidate genes (BDNF, OXTR, RORA, GRM8, CHRNA4, IL-1A, CRHR1, MTHFR, DRD2, APOE) and loneliness were replicated (p40.05), despite our much larger sample size. We estimated the chip heritability of loneliness and examined coheritability between loneliness and several personality and psychiatric traits. Our estimates of chip heritability (14-27%) support a role for common genetic variation. We identified strong genetic correlations between loneliness, neuroticism, and a scale of 'depressive symptoms.' We also identified weaker evidence for coheritability with extraversion, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and major depressive disorder. We conclude that loneliness, as defined in this study, is a modestly heritable trait that has a highly polygenic genetic architecture. The coheritability between loneliness and neuroticism may reflect the role of negative affectivity that is common to both traits. Our results also reflect the value of studies that probe the common genetic basis of salutary social bonds and clinically defined psychiatric disorders.

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Loneliness and neuroendocrine, cardiovascular, and inflammatory stress responses in middle-aged men and women

Cited by 475 publications

References 63 publications

Social connectedness is associated with fibrinogen level in a human social network

Social connectedness is associated with fibrinogen level in a human social network

Loneliness and Social Isolation: Risk Factors Long Overdue for Surveillance

Genome-Wide Association Study of Loneliness Demonstrates a Role for Common Variation

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