Feeling Lonely?

A new generation of researchers has found that loneliness can contribute to all sorts of ailments such as depression.

Depression is prominently featured in the medical profession's manual of mental disorders, but loneliness doesn't make the grade. Yet in recent years it has been identified as a risk factor for problems as Alzheimer's disease and elevated blood pressure.

The elderly are prime candidates for loneliness. One researcher found that more than 20 percent of older adults reported feeling frequently lonely. The elderly receive little public attention until disaster strikes, like a hurricane or a heat wave. We humans start out as helpless creatures, so we depend on each other. And being in social isolation can have a toll on our health, our immune system or even quicken death.

Until recently, loneliness received little scientific attention or financial support, but a small group of researchers is now focused on the feeling, especially its impact on health. Cacioppo and his colleagues at the University of Chicago are among them. Cacioppo suggests that the best way to break out of loneliness is to start small, volunteer work, for example, can bring you into positive, contact with others.

The way this is related to biology is that loneliness can have a toll on one's health. As in causing depression and hastening death. This is important because a lot of people can be at risk. That is why we shouldn't let anyone be lonely and always make friends. Because when you think anyone's grandparents could be feeling lonely and they could be effected.

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http://www.aolnews.com/health/article/university-of-chicago-study-finds-that-loneliness-can-make-you-ill-or-depressed/19560166