Loneliness can damage recovery from illness

"Loneliness is my least favourite things about life.

The thing that I am most worried about is just being alone

without anybody to care for or anyone to care for me."

Anne Hathaway

Lonely breast cancer sufferers are 60 per cent more likely to die from the disease than those within a busy social life.  Researchers also found they are 40 per cent more likely to suffer tumour recurrence.

It backs up prevoous findings that loneliness can seriously damage recovery from illness, with those isolated being 70 per cent more likely to die from any cause.

Experts monitored more than 9000 women with breast cancer for two years following their diagnosis. Nearly 1500 of the participants saw their tumour return, while 900 died from the disease. Lonely patients were more likely to get another tumour and die from it.

Dr Candyce Kroenke, from the Kaiser Permanente health group in Oakland, California said:
"These findings confirm the beneficial influence of women's social ties on breast cancer recirrence and mortality".

It certainly appears that more research is needed to explain the impact of loneliness on health. Maybe GPs should be encouraged to quiz patients on their social networks.

This is one reason we organise and manage health walks in Islington. Many of our walkers tend to be older, and we have had people with cancer, strokes, heart disease and other ailments join  us, and all have said the walks have been a big positive for them.  Half the impact is the friendship, chatter, and interaction between our walkers.