Lonely Students Show Weaker Immunity: Study

[The Straight Story]

Lonely Students Show Weaker Immunity: Study

Reuters Health

By Charnicia E. Huggins

Thursday, May 12, 2005

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - First-year college students who consider themselves to be very lonely on campus and cut off from their friends and family back home may receive less benefit from flu vaccinations than their peers, new study findings suggest.

"The loneliness and social isolation that university freshman experience in their first semester is powerful enough to have a very real impact on immune function, with potentially health relevant implications," study author Sarah D. Pressman, a doctoral candidate at Pittsburgh's Carnegie Melon University, told Reuters Health.

In light of this, it is important for students to "form social connections to protect themselves against illness, (and against) poorer immune response to vaccination," she said

Pressman and her team looked at the influence of loneliness and social isolation on the immune response of 83 healthy men and women in their first semester of college.

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/news/fullstory_24627.html

[Pizza]

1. Thats a sad article...

guess its time to get flushots for everyone living alone?

[FreedomAngel82]

2. I've never had the problem

I'm pretty lonely when it comes to social interaction (just my choice) and I've hardly ever been sick. :shrug:

[alarimer]

4. I think it is being around sick people that make others sick

I mean if you spend a lot of time alone, you are less likely to be exposed to things like the flu. So this article seems bogun on the face of it.

[misanthrope]

3. Duh?!...

...I thought everyone was well aware of the role psychology plays in physiological health.

[alarimer]

5. very small sample size

83 people? Can't prove much with a sample size that small, I should think. Was there a control group that was given a placebo? The article does not say much of anything about the statistical methodology.