Loneliness is more than a bad feeling. It's as deadly as smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day and is associated with a greater risk of cardiovascular disease, dementia, stroke, depression, anxiety, and premature death, according to an advisory by the U.S. Surgeon General.
Loneliness is the new silent killer, and as deadly as smoking: US surgeon-general.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Widespread loneliness in the U.S. poses health risks as deadly as smoking up to 15 cigarettes daily, costing the health industry billions of dollars annually, the U.S. surgeon general said Tuesday in declaring the latest public health epidemic.
The Surgeon General released an advisory last week concluding that social disconnection is as bad for your health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day.
Loneliness is a health crisis comparable to smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day. Here's how to combat it. Dr. Vivek Murthy, the U.S. Surgeon General, has been outspoken about the mental and physical health impacts of loneliness.
Not only does obesity have more negative health consequences than smoking, drinking, or poverty, it also affects more people. Approximately 23 percent of Americans are obese.
Conclusions Smoking only about one cigarette per day carries a risk of developing coronary heart disease and stroke much greater than expected: around half that for people who smoke 20 per day. No safe level of smoking exists for cardiovascular disease.
According to researchers, certain psychological issues — such as hopelessness, unhappiness, and loneliness — increase a person's biological age more than smoking.
Being socially isolated is terribly unhealthy. Studies since the 1980s have shown that if you haven't got friends, family or community ties, your chance of dying early may be 50% higher than if you did. Social isolation is now being touted as similarly detrimental to health as smoking or not taking exercise.
A recent study shows that loneliness kills nearly twice as many people as obesity (when including both direct and indirect effects of obesity). Directly, loneliness can kill in the form of depression and suicide. People feel so isolated from others that they may feel the only way to end the pain is to end their lives.
Each cigarette shortens life by 11 minutes. Each pack of cigarettes shortens life by 31/2 hours. Smokers who die of tobacco-related disease lose, on average, 14 years of life.
Sign up now for a weekly digest of the top drug and alcohol news that impacts your work, life and community. Almost two-thirds of people who smoke four or fewer cigarettes a day are addicted to nicotine, a new study finds.
Loneliness has been estimated to shorten a person's life by 15 years, equivalent in impact to being obese or smoking 15 cigarettes per day.
Loneliness is toxic
Loneliness has clear consequences for mental health, aggravating anxiety, depression, and stress-related symptoms. Additionally, it sabotages our physical health. According to two leading researchers, loneliness triggers an inflammatory response and threatens our immune system.
Loneliness is a mechanism that's in place because we need, as a social species, to be able to identify when our connections with others for mutual aid and protection are being threatened or absent. If there's no connection, there could be mortal consequences. Those are threats to our survival and reproductive success.
Masculine norms teach men to be tough, brave, and independent from the earliest age. Due to such a mindset, most men fear being perceived as weak or vulnerable, preventing them from reaching out to social contacts and deeply connecting with others. How Does Loneliness Affect Mental Health and Well-Being?
"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.
Cigarette smoking causes premature death: Life expectancy for smokers is at least 10 years shorter than for nonsmokers. Quitting smoking before the age of 40 reduces the risk of dying from smoking-related disease by about 90%.
Nicotine stimulates the release of the chemical dopamine in the brain. Dopamine is involved in triggering positive feelings. It is often found to be low in people with depression, who may then use cigarettes to temporarily increase their dopamine supply.
Extreme obesity shortens your life more than smoking
They found the smokers lived longer on average. Healthy weight smokers lost about nine years of their lives. Non-smoking adults who were extremely obese -- defined as having a BMI of 55 to 55.9 -- lost nearly 14 years on average.
When people stop smoking, studies show: anxiety, depression and stress levels are lower. quality of life and positive mood improve.
Many studies show that vaping is far less harmful than smoking. This is because e-cigarettes don't contain cancer-causing tobacco, and most of the toxic chemicals found in cigarettes are not in e-cigarettes. Some potentially harmful chemicals have been found in e-cigarettes.
The genetic sequences identified in healthy older smokers may have a protective effect, which is why they have survived despite the significant ill effects of their habit.
Experts agree vaping is substantially less harmful than smoking but it is not risk-free. Vaping exposes users to fewer toxins and at lower levels than smoking cigarettes.