Social isolation ‘as bad for your health as smoking’

Having a small social network is as bad for your health as smoking, according to a new study. Researchers from Yale University showed that a person’s position in the social network is associated with blood markers of stress. They discovered that the more people who would call you a friend the lower the levels of fibrinogen, a predictor of heart attack and stroke, in your blood. However, reeling off a long list of those we consider friends does not have the same effect. The number of friends and relatives named by an individual, reflecting the perceived social network, is only weakly related to fibrinogen levels. The association between social isolation and fibrinogen is comparable to the effect of smoking, and greater than that of low education, a conventional measure of socioeconomic disadvantage, the scientists said. What matters is how others see us, not how we see them. Biggest health risks Ischaemic heart disease, also known as coronary heart disease, and stroke are the biggest health risks of social isolation and thes conditions are also the two leading causes of death worldwide. Most recent figures from the ONS show that there are 7.7 million one-person households in the UK – an increase of almost 16.7 per cent since 1996. Of these, 54 per cent comprised one woman and 46 per cent one man. People living alone now account for one in every 3.5 households. Research published last month showed that 1.3 million older people spend two months a year alone. The survey of 1,000 over 65-year-olds, found 11 per cent said they spent five days or more a month without seeing anyone. The scientists, writing in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, said: “The magnitude of the relationship is considerable, with social isolation in our study population… predicting elevations in fibrinogen comparable to the effect of smoking.”

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