ArticleAnnals of behavioral medicine : a publication of the Society of Behavioral Medicine2019
Loneliness and Telomere Length: Immune and Parasympathetic Function in Associations With Accelerated Aging.
Article in Annals of behavioral medicine : a publication of the Society of Behavioral Medicine, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 28 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
28 citing papers in PubMed.
- Association of Short-term Change in Leukocyte Telomere Length With Cortical Thickness and Outcomes of Mental Training Among Healthy Adults: A Randomized Clinical Trial.JAMA network open · 2019Trial
- Social Isolation, Loneliness and Subclinical Atherosclerosis.Current atherosclerosis reports · 2026Review
- The independent association of social isolation and loneliness with cognitive frailty in Chinese older adults: a cross-sectional study.BMC public health · 2025Article
- The mediating role of sarcopenia in the link between loneliness and frailty among nursing home residents: a cross-sectional study.BMC geriatrics · 2025Article
- The High-Risk Model of Threat Perception Modulates Learning of Placebo and Nocebo Effects and Functional Somatic Disorders.Brain sciences · 2025Review
- Volunteering and Its Association with Depression, Loneliness, and Lifestyle of Older Adults: Insights from a Japanese Cross-Sectional Study.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Psychoneuroimmunology and the research of Janice Kiecolt-Glaser: It informs self-care and the practice of medicine.Comprehensive psychoneuroendocrinology · 2024Review
- Interpersonal relationships, PNI, and health: Seeds in the 1980s, fruiting trees today.Comprehensive psychoneuroendocrinology · 2024Article
- Moving toward affective immunology: Legacy and future directions.Comprehensive psychoneuroendocrinology · 2024Article
- Investigating the relationship between early cardiovascular disease markers and loneliness in young adults.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Influence of loneliness burden on cardio-cerebral vascular disease among the Chinese older adult: a national cohort study.Frontiers in public health · 2024Article
- A structural vulnerability approach to older adult suicides: Trends and potential impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic in Clark County, NV (2017-2021).Forensic science international. Synergy · 2024Article
- Iterative Design, Feasibility, and Preliminary Efficacy Testing for the Development of a Cooperative Card Game Intervention to Reduce Loneliness and Foster Social Connection.Games for health journal · 2023Article
- Social participation and risk of developing dementia.Nature aging · 2023Review
- Social Safety Theory: Conceptual foundation, underlying mechanisms, and future directions.Health psychology review · 2023Article
- Article
- Loneliness, Depression, and Genetics in the Elderly: Prognostic Factors of a Worse Health Condition?International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Article
- Born to Age: When Adult Congenital Heart Disease Converges With Geroscience.JACC. Advances · 2022Review
- Prefrontally modulated vagal neuroimmunomodulation is associated with telomere length.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2022Article
- Networks, cultures, and institutions: Toward a social immunology.Brain, behavior, & immunity - health · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundLonely people's heightened risks for chronic health conditions and early mortality may emerge in part through cellular aging. Lonelier people have more severe sympathetic responses to acute stress, increasing their risk for herpesvirus reactivation, a possible path to shorter telomeres. Parasympathetic function may modulate this risk. PURPOSE: The current study aimed to examine the associations among loneliness, herpesvirus reactivation, and telomere length, with parasympathetic activity as a moderator, in healthy middle-aged and older adults.
methodsA sample of 113 healthy men and women of ages 40-85 provided blood samples that were assayed for telomere length, as well as the latent herpesviruses cytomegalovirus (CMV) and Epstein-Barr virus (EBV). They also provided heart rate variability (HRV), a measure of parasympathetic activity, and reported on their feelings of loneliness.
resultsLonelier people with lower HRV (i.e., lower parasympathetic activity) had greater CMV reactivation and shorter telomeres compared with their less lonely counterparts, above and beyond demographics, health behaviors, resting heart rate, and social network size. However, loneliness was not associated with viral reactivation or telomere length among those with higher HRV. In turn, greater CMV and EBV reactivation was associated with shorter telomeres.
conclusionsTaken together, these data implicate parasympathetic function in novel links between loneliness and accelerated cellular aging.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.