Let's wage war on loneliness

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LONDON • We humans make a lonely crowd, and it's killing us.

Social isolation is more lethal than obesity or smoking 15 cigarettes a day, according to research published by Dr Julianne Holt-Lunstad of Brigham Young University. Since obesity is associated in the United States with 300,000 to 600,000 deaths a year, the implication is that loneliness is a huge, if silent, killer.

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A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Straits Times on November 12, 2019, with the headline Let's wage war on loneliness. Subscribe