When was the last time that you felt lonely? It's an uncomfortable question, but for 3.83 million people in the UK, 7.1% of the population, the answer is probably "right now".
Loneliness has become a worrying public health matter because it is common and is often associated with people experiencing physical and mental health problems . There is now taxpayers' money being spent at the local, national and international levels on initiatives to minimize loneliness and the harmful effect it can have on people's health. But are those investments misjudged? New research from Guangzhou Medical University in China has challenged the notion that loneliness can cause ill health.
Instead, the findings suggest that loneliness might be considered an associated feature for many diseases (a so-called "surrogate marker") as it was shown to not be a root cause for poor physical and mental health. The researchers used data from the UK Biobank in which over half a million people aged 37 to 73 were asked to report how often they felt lonely. They conducted analyses based on the distribution of genetic variants in the population (known as "Mendelian randomization" ) to test the causal effect of loneliness on a wide range of diseases, including physical and mental health problems .
This is certainly an interesting study; however, there are several points we must consider when reflecting on the findings. It is important to note that UK Biobank data isn't the best for testing the causal effects of l.