“Loneliness hurts your physical health, not just your mood.”
Loneliness is linked with more heart disease, stroke and earlier death, though the evidence shows a consistent link rather than proof of cause.
Social connection is part of physical health, not just a mood issue, and lasting loneliness is worth taking as seriously as other health habits. Small, regular contact that fits your life is a more realistic goal than a busy social calendar, and it is fine to ask for help if loneliness feels hard to change on your own.
Choose one repeatable connection that fits your life, such as a weekly call, a shared activity or a community group, and put the first one on your calendar.
Safety note: Severe loneliness can accompany depression, substance use, self-neglect or suicidal thinking. Social contact complements rather than replaces medical or mental-health care.
Talk to a healthcare professional if: loneliness lasts or keeps getting worse, or comes with low mood or heavy drinking or drug use. If you have thoughts of harming yourself, get help right away.
Long-term studies of more than 2 million people consistently link loneliness and isolation with more heart disease, stroke and earlier death, and genetic studies point the same way, so the claim is mostly true. Confidence is limited because loneliness cannot be assigned in a trial, so the evidence is observational and the true size of the harm is uncertain.
Loneliness is linked with more heart disease, stroke and earlier death, though the evidence shows a consistent link rather than proof of cause. In 90 studies of more than 2 million adults, lonely people had about a 14% higher risk of dying during follow-up, and socially isolated people about a 32% higher risk. In another review, poor social relationships were linked with about 29% more heart disease and 32% more strokes; all of these are relative increases.
Loneliness is a feeling, while social isolation is an objective lack of contact; they overlap but are not the same, and both are linked with health. Illness can also cause isolation, and income, health habits and other factors can affect both, which studies can only partly adjust for. Genetic studies, which avoid some of these problems, found that a genetic tendency toward loneliness and isolation went with slightly higher rates of high blood pressure and heart disease, which supports a real effect but rests on its own assumptions.
- Wang F, Gao Y, Han Z, Yu Y, Long Z, Jiang X, Wu Y, Pei B, Cao Y, Ye J, Wang M, Zhao Y. A systematic review and meta-analysis of 90 cohort studies of social isolation, loneliness and mortality. Nature Human Behaviour. 2023;7(8):1307-1319. DOI: 10.1038/s41562-023-01617-6. PMID: 37337095
- Holt-Lunstad J, Smith TB, Baker M, Harris T, Stephenson D. Loneliness and social isolation as risk factors for mortality: a meta-analytic review. Perspectives on Psychological Science. 2015;10(2):227-237. DOI: 10.1177/1745691614568352. PMID: 25910392
- Valtorta NK, Kanaan M, Gilbody S, Ronzi S, Hanratty B. Loneliness and social isolation as risk factors for coronary heart disease and stroke: systematic review and meta-analysis of longitudinal observational studies. Heart. 2016;102(13):1009-1016. DOI: 10.1136/heartjnl-2015-308790. PMID: 27091846. PMCID: PMC4941172
- Cai JY, Wang X, Zheng CY, Cao X, Hu Z, Gu RQ, Tian YX, Tian Y, Shao L, Zhang LF, Wang ZW. Effects of loneliness and isolation on cardiovascular diseases: a two sample Mendelian Randomization Study. Journal of Geriatric Cardiology. 2024;21(3):340-348. DOI: 10.26599/1671-5411.2024.03.006. PMID: 38665286. PMCID: PMC11040057
- Office of the US Surgeon General. Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation: The US Surgeon General's Advisory on the Healing Effects of Social Connection and Community. 2023. PMID: 37792968