Scientists Find Genetic Causes of Loneliness

(Credit: frankie's/shutterstock) "No man is an island," noted English poet John Donne, but now a new study of nearly a half-million people find there may be genetic roots to loneliness. These findings also show that some genetic variations are linked to social activities like going to the pub. The results were published Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications. Previous research has already shown that loneliness is more than just a state of mind. It's strongly linked with an increase in all causes of death, on a level comparable to smoking and in excess of factors like obesity and lack of exercise. Loneliness is also quite common, with roughly one in four people over the age of 65 in the United Kingdom suffering from it, noted the study's senior author, John Perry, a geneticist at the University of Cambridge in England, and his colleagues. A range of physical and mental traits ...