ArticleSocial science & medicine (1982)2018
Loneliness in middle age and biomarkers of systemic inflammation: Findings from Midlife in the United States.
Article in Social science & medicine (1982), 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 65 papers.
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Who cites it
65 citing papers in PubMed.
- Symptom Clusters in Family Caregivers of Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation Recipients: Loneliness as a Risk Factor.Transplantation and cellular therapy · 2023Trial
- Associations Between Social Media-Based Digital Contact with Family and Friends on Loneliness and Well-being Outcomes in Middle-aged and Older Adults: A Mediation Analysis.Humanities & social sciences communications · 2026Article
- Interviewer gender and loneliness disclosure in survey research: evidence from the European Social Survey and the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe.Population health metrics · 2026Article
- Lonely minds, inflamed guts: metabolic and circulating protein pathways linking social isolation and loneliness to inflammatory bowel disease.Translational psychiatry · 2026Article
- Racial/ethnic variation of neighborhood social cohesion, loneliness, and cognitive functioning among midlife and older U.S. adults.The journals of gerontology. Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences · 2026Article
- The Pathway From Loneliness to Chronic Diseases: Examining the Mediating Roles of Depression and Self-Perceived Health, and the Moderating Effect of Age Among Older Adults in Israel.Journal of applied gerontology : the official journal of the Southern Gerontological Society · 2026Article
- The Relationship Between Aging Anxiety and Depression in Middle-Aged Adults: The Moderating Effect of Gratitude Disposition.Psychiatry investigation · 2026Article
- Visceral Adiposity and Inflammation Index as Predictors of Stroke Risk in Middle and Older Age: A Cohort Study Across Blood Pressure Groups.Brain and behavior · 2025Article
- Does Loneliness Hurt? Effect of Loneliness on Inflammator Biomarkers, Appetite Hormone Regulation, and Cognitive Function Among Typically Developing Adolescents.Journal of the Canadian Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry = Journal de l'Academie canadienne de psychiatrie de l'enfant et de l'adolescent · 2025Article
- Association of loneliness trajectories with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, a cohort study from China.NPJ primary care respiratory medicine · 2025Article
- The independent association of social isolation and loneliness with cognitive frailty in Chinese older adults: a cross-sectional study.BMC public health · 2025Article
- Association between atherogenic index and risk of falls: a decade-long prospective cohort study.BMC public health · 2025Article
- Cumulative loneliness and memory function among U.S. older adults: the role of depressive symptoms.The journals of gerontology. Series A, Biological sciences and medical sciences · 2025Article
- Identifying leading anti-inflammatory dietary determinants of depression and loneliness in older adults.Brain, behavior, & immunity - health · 2025Article
- Relating Biopsychosocial Meanings to Semi-Quantitative CRP Readings Among Primary Healthcare Users: Trends from a Cross-Sectional Study Analysis.Journal of clinical medicine · 2025Article
- Association between the atherogenic index of plasma and incident hypertension across different blood pressure states: a national cohort study.Cardiovascular diabetology · 2025Article
- Perception of one's social environment and loneliness: results of the nationally representative "Old age in Germany (D80+)" study.Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology · 2025Article
- Suicide Risk and Living Alone With Depression or Anxiety.JAMA network open · 2025Article
- Social isolation, loneliness, and their joint effects on cognitive decline and incident Alzheimer's disease: Findings from the Chicago health and aging project.The journal of prevention of Alzheimer's disease · 2025Article
- Plasma proteomic signatures of social isolation and loneliness associated with morbidity and mortality.Nature human behaviour · 2025Article
5 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
Abstract
objectiveMiddle-aged adults who are lonely have an elevated likelihood of death. Systemic inflammation may contribute to these increased odds. Using population-level data, this study tested if systemic inflammation is associated with loneliness in a broad age range of middle-aged adults in the United States.
methodsThis study used data from the Midlife in the US (MIDUS) survey Biomarker Project, which collected data on psychological, social, and physiological measures from a sample of middle-aged adults. This sample included the 927 participants who were 35-64 years at Biomarker Project data collection. MIDUS collected baseline data from 1995-1996 and a follow-up survey was conducted from 2004-2006. The baseline Milwaukee sample of African Americans was collected in 2005-2006 and the biomarker database was collected in 2004-2009. Biomarkers were obtained from a fasting blood sample. Self-reported loneliness was categorized as feeling lonely or not feeling lonely. Hierarchical regressions examined the association between biomarkers of systemic inflammation (interleukin-6, fibrinogen, C-reactive protein) and feeling lonely, adjusted for covariates.
resultsTwenty-nine percent of the sample reported feeling lonely most or some of the time. There was a positive significant relationship between loneliness and the three systemic inflammation biomarkers after controlling for covariates: interleukin-6 (n = 873) (b [se] = 0.07 [0.03], p = .014); fibrinogen (n = 867) (b [se] = 18.24 [7.12], p = .011); and C-reactive protein (n = 867) (b [se] = 0.08 [0.04], p = .035).
conclusionsFeeling lonely is associated with systemic inflammation in middle-aged community-dwelling US adults.
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