Research results showing that lonely people get colds and symptoms worsen

ByFlood G.

A study showing that the spiritual condition of "loneliness" exacerbates the physical symptoms such as runny nose, sneezing, throat pain when catching a cold,Rice UniversityIt was announced by their research team. There are various situations where people feel "lonely", but for example it seems that you can not dismiss loneliness in "SNS exchanges".

Loneliness Predicts Self-Reported Cold Symptoms After a Viral Challenge
(PDF file)http://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/hea-hea0000467.pdf


Lonely People Report More Severe Cold Symptoms, Study Finds: Shots - Health News: NPR
http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2017/03/30/521927344/lonely-people-report-more-severe-cold-symptoms-study-finds

Bad cold? If you're lonely, it may feel worse: Lonelier people report more acute symptoms - ScienceDaily
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/03/170330092831.htm

The research team at Rice University and Houston University gathered 159 men and women from 18 to 55 years old to investigate the relationships which have not been studied much so far, "loneliness" and "illness". The collaborators took nose drops infecting a common cold virus, ask them to stay in the hotel room for 5 days and see the progressScreening testIt was said that it was done. Participants agree that everyone will take a test, but in addition, cooperation fee of 1060 dollars (about 118,500 yen) per person is also paid.

In the group of 159 people, "degree of isolation" is measured, and "degree of isolation" with society was also measured from the scale of SNS that each person has. As a result, the person who was already lonely said that the symptoms did not get worse after a cold later infected. On the other hand, people who became lonely after having been infected with a cold first tended to have symptoms worsened by 39% compared with those who did not feel loneliness after infecting with a cold.

Although the possibility that symptoms worsen by loneliness was shown, the research team said that it could not control all variables such as age, marital status, depression symptoms of participants, and others There is a possibility that the factor of influencing the cold deteriorates. The difference between the "loneliness degree" and the "degree of isolation" measured earlier was found, and the person feeling loneliness was confirmed to have deteriorated symptoms, but it is indicated by the number of contacts and the scale of human relations It is known that isolation degree did not affect symptoms.

Julianne Holt-Lunstad, professor of psychology and neuroscience at Brigham Young University says, "People can feel lonely without being isolated from the group, and vice versa." Both subjective index of "loneliness" and objective "index of social isolation" are considered to be an important factor of early death, but this time the research that studied both at the same time That was the first time.

ByKeith Williams

Holt-Lunstad points out, "When you want to distract solitude, you may not just help increasing SNS interaction, the important thing is the quality of human relationships." In 2016, there are research results showing that "it is necessary to combine face and face in real, not net, to relieve loneliness".