Logo

Sign in | Create an Account Cart 0
Sign In
Forgot password?
Institutional Users can Sign In here
Don't have an Account?
Create an account
 
Forgot Password
 
Thank You for Registration

Thank-you for creating an account on Longwoods.com.

As a registered user of longwoods.com you can receive the following benefits:
  • Abstracts from ALL Longwoods.com publications
  • Citation tracking and reference links to full-text articles
  • Ability to share the information through various social media outlets with a single click
  • Ability to comment on any article
  • Pay-per-View purchases of single articles or issues by credit card or paypal
  • Choice of any www.longwoods.com/newsletters delivered to your email inbox for free
  • Ability to sign up for any www.longwoods.com/events.
  • The advantage of having password access to www.Longwoods.com from any computer anywhere
Please check your e-mail and follow the instructions to activate your account. If you do not receive an e-mail, please check your junk folder.
Reset Password

Please check your e-mail and follow the instructions to reset your password.

Menu
  • Home
  • Topics
    • Access to Care
    • Aging
    • Alternative Levels of Care
    • Caregivers
    • Change Management
    • Child Health
    • Community Care
    • Continuing Care
    • Decision Making
    • Digital Health
    • Effective Teamwork
    • Governance
    • Health Human Resources
    • Health System Innovation
    • Healthcare Costs
    • Healthcare Policy
    • Home Care
    • Leadership Development
    • Long-Term Care
    • Mental Health
    • Nursing Leadership
    • Opinions
    • Palliative Care
    • Patient Experience
    • Patient Safety
    • Pharmacare
    • Primary Care
    • System Transformation
    • Workforce Planning
  • Events
    • Breakfast with the Chiefs
    • Conferences and Education
    • Healthcare Awards
    • Healthcare Rounds
  • Publications
    • Healthcare Quarterly
    • HealthcarePapers
    • Healthcare Policy
    • Nursing Leadership
    • World Health & Population
    • Special Issues
    • ElectronicHealthcare
    • Law & Governance
    • Books
    • Essays
    • White Papers
    • Longwoods Blog
  • Multimedia
    • Videos
    • Podcasts
  • Jobs
    • Longwoods Job Site
    • HR Resources Database
    • Transitions
    • Rates for Job Postings
  • Subscribe
Share

Health & Healthcare News

Researchers are working on a pill for loneliness, as studies suggest the condition is worse than obesity

2019-08-12 from nationalpost.com

The volunteers at the University of Chicago’s Brain Dynamics Laboratory, all otherwise young and healthy, were tied together by really only one thing: nearly off-the-chart scores on the most widely used scale measuring loneliness.

Asked how often they felt they had no one they could turn to, how often they felt their relationships seemed superficial and forced, how often they felt alone, left out, isolated or no longer closer to anyone, the answer, almost always, was “always.”

The volunteers agreed to be randomly dosed over eight weeks with either pregnenolone, a hormone naturally produced by the body’s adrenal gland, or a placebo. Two hours after swallowing the assigned tablet, the university’s researchers captured and recorded their brain activity while the participants looked at pictures of emotional faces or neutral scenes.

Studies in animals suggest that a single injection of pregnenolone can reduce or “normalize” an exaggerated threat response in socially isolated lab mice, similar to the kind of hyper vigilance lonely people feel that makes them poor at reading other people’s intentions and feelings.

The researchers have every hope the drug will work in lonely human brains, too, although they insist the goal is not an attempt to cure loneliness with a pill.

Lead researcher and neuroscientist Stephanie Cacioppo has likened using a drug to rubbing frost from a windshield. Loneliness increases both a desire to connect with others, and a gut instinct for self-preservation (“if I let you get close to me, you’ll only hurt me, too”). People become more wary, cautious and self-centred. The idea is to help people see things as they are, “rather than being afraid of everyone,” Cacioppo said in an interview with Smithsonian.com.

For some, the idea of a pharmacological buffer against loneliness is just another sign of the creeping medicalization of everyday human woes: Wouldn’t a pill for loneliness only make us more indifferent, more disconnected? Is it really the best we can do to fix the modern world’s so-called epidemic of loneliness?

Read more here 

Contact information

Contact Us
Mailing address

260 Adelaide Street East, No. 8, Toronto ON M5A 1N1

Studio and delivery address

54 Berkeley St., Suite 305, 3rd Floor Toronto, ON M5A 2W4

Download map to our office(PDF - 46.3 KB)
Telephone number
416-864-9667
Fax number
416-368-4443

Subscribe Today

  • Healthcare Quarterly

Stay Connected

Newsletter
© 2019
Longwoods Publishing Corporation
  • Institutional Users
  • About Us
  • Subscription Information
  • Advertise
  • Reprints
  • Partners
  • Terms
  • Privacy