Feeling lonely is worse for your health than smoking.
Research has found that negative emotions speed up people’s biological clocks more than cigarettes.
Feelings of isolation and unhappiness have been found to add up to an extra year and eight months onto somebody’s age, five months more than puffing away on cigarettes.
Studies have shown that damage to the body’s biological clock raises the risk of diabetes, heart disease and various other illnesses.
Laurie Theeke, from George Washington University, said that the results did not come as a surprise as she has spent years looking into the topic of loneliness.
The expert, who wasn’t involved in the study, said: “I have been studying this since 2002, and there are many national datasets that show loneliness leads to a shorter lifespan, higher mortality and more co-morbidities – so this doesn’t surprise me at all.”
