In Cancer-Ridden Rats, Loneliness Can Kill
Included In: Psychology / Psychiatry; Preventive Medicine
Article Date: 08 Dec 2009 - 5:00 PST
Socially isolated female rats develop more tumors - and tumors of a more deadly type - than rats living in a social group, according to researchers at Yale University and the University of Chicago.
"There is a growing interest in relationships between the environment, emotion and disease. This study offers insight into how the social world gets under the skin," said Gretchen Hermes, first author of the paper and a resident in the Neurosciences Research Training Program in the Yale Department of Psychiatry.
The leading suspect seems to be stress, triggered by being separated from a group. Stress is linked to many negative health outcomes - including activation of cancer-promoting genes.
To test the hypothesis, researchers followed the development of spontaneously occurring mammary tumors in rats that lived in groups or in isolation. Although both the solitary and social animals developed tumors, the isolated rats developed 84 times the amount of tumors as those living in groups. Those tumors also proved to be more malignant than those found in rats living in groups.
The results show that health effects of isolation need to be studied more closely in a broad range of human disease, particularly psychiatric disorders, Hermes said.
...."The results of this study make a physiological link between loss of the social network and disease states, and may help explain the shortened life expectancy of individuals with mental illness."
Source:
Bill Hathaway
Yale University
So is this another example of mind-body connection? Or is it an example of mind-body-social group connection?
If social isolation is a risk factor for disease states, there is yet another risk factor(like obesity, smoking, and eating red meat) that doesn't explain my situation. (And I'm neither male nor African-American -- two other risk factors for pancreatic cancer.)
On the other hand, I'm sure that my healthy habits are part of what has kept me going so well, so far. And this study (even though I'm not a rat) suggests that, as Jerry and I have said all along, the love and support of family and friends is another big part of my continued good health.
1 comment:
So, they are saying that people who are isolated have a mental illness? I don't think that's a valid conclusion. I know there have been studies showing that isolated people are more stressed, but i'm not sure I understand why--often, it's more stressful to be constantly in the company of others. In any case, you've always seemed to have a good mix of social activities and more solitary pursuits, and no doubt that keeps you sane and as healthy as possible. You go, girl!
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