Loneliness and it’s toll on your health

Too much alone time can kill you. A study conducted by Brigham Young University found that isolation and loneliness are as bad for a person’s health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day or being an alcoholic. Researchers examined data from 35 years’ worth of studies on loneliness, and after accounting for participants’ socioeconomic status, age, gender, and pre-existing health conditions, they found that people who feel lonely have a 26 percent greater risk of premature death.

Living alone or being socially isolated is even more damaging to a person’s health, increasing the risk of early death by roughly 30 percent. The Brigham Young University researchers believe that the U.S. will see soaring numbers of loneliness related health problems in the near future, because more people than ever are living alone. “We are predicting a possible epidemic,” says the study’s co-author Tim Smith.