By Shilpa Ravella

New studies find that being chronically lonely affects us in ways that go deeper than the mind.

The epidemic of loneliness in this country, according to United States surgeon general Vivek Murthy, is a “public health crisis on the scale of the opioid epidemic or obesity.”

How exactly does loneliness contribute to disease? The danger to one’s survival from perceived loneliness can affect various processes in our body, including those involved in metabolism — which governs the conversion of food into fuel, among other things — as well as neurologic, endocrine, and immune responses. Our immune system, in fact, responds to loneliness as it would the threat of a deadly virus, producing more inflammatory cells and proteins. Ongoing loneliness may lead to chronic, low-level inflammation.

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