ReviewInternational journal of environmental research and public health2021
Loneliness: An Immunometabolic Syndrome.
Review in International journal of environmental research and public health, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 38 papers.
What it found
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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.
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Who cites it
38 citing papers in PubMed.
- Effects of 28-day simvastatin administration on emotional processing, reward learning, working memory, and salivary cortisol in healthy participants at-risk for depression: OxSTEP, an online experimental medicine trial.Psychological medicine · 2025Trial
- Social Physiology: Human homeostasis is more efficient in social proximity.Science advances · 2026Article
- Lifestyle and psychosocial protective factors drive healthy aging and modulate inflammatory and metabolic pathways.GeroScience · 2026Article
- The Effects of Open-World and Fun, Accessible Games on Perceived Loneliness and Stoicism in Adults: Cross-Sectional Survey Study.JMIR serious games · 2026Article
- Associations between perceived stress, psychosocial stressors, and HbA1c levels in healthy young adults from a prospective cohort study.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Mobile Phone Addiction and Sleep Quality Among Children and Adolescents: Unraveling the Health Consequences.Cureus · 2026Review
- Social isolation and loneliness: an integration framework for medical education.Frontiers in medicine · 2026Article
- Clinical relevance of loneliness in the treatment of depression: study protocol for a naturalistic prospective longitudinal study.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2026Article
- Reciprocal effects between loneliness and sleep disturbances from adolescence to mid-adulthood: the HUNT study.Sleep advances : a journal of the Sleep Research Society · 2026Article
- Inflammation and Perceived Social Support in Elite Athletes (A Quantile Regression Approach).Neuroimmunomodulation · 2026Article
- Hormonal and Behavioral Consequences of Social Isolation and Loneliness: Neuroendocrine Mechanisms and Clinical Implications.International journal of molecular sciences · 2025Review
- Loneliness in schizophrenia: Just loneliness.Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences · 2025Review
- Psychometric properties and cross-cultural adaptation of the UCLA loneliness scale, 6-item among older Iranian people.BMC psychology · 2025Article
- Association of Game Use With Loneliness and Social Isolation: A Nationwide Korean Study.Psychiatry investigation · 2025Article
- Explainable machine learning model incorporating social determinants of health to predict chronic kidney disease in type 2 diabetes patients.Journal of diabetes and metabolic disorders · 2025Article
- Mentalizing, Loneliness and Pain-Related Depressive Symptoms Are Associated with Pain Severity in Patients with Rheumatic Diseases: Results of a Cross-Sectional Secondary Analysis.Journal of clinical medicine · 2025Article
- Social isolation, loneliness and the relationship with serum biomarkers, functional parameters and mortality in older adults.Aging clinical and experimental research · 2025Article
- Loneliness, Methamphetamine Use, and Cardiovascular Risk Factors Among Sexual Minority Men in the COVID-19 Era.International journal of behavioral medicine · 2025Article
- Rethinking Depression-Beyond Neurotransmitters: An Integrated Psychoneuroendocrineimmunology Framework for Depression's Pathophysiology and Tailored Treatment.International journal of molecular sciences · 2025Review
- The Legal and Ethical Dimensions of Hospital Visitation Bans in the COVID-19 Era.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Loneliness has been defined as an agonizing encounter, experienced when the need for human intimacy is not met adequately, or when a person's social network does not match their preference, either in number or attributes. This definition helps us realize that the cause of loneliness is not merely being alone, but rather not being in the company we desire. With loneliness being introduced as a measurable, distinct psychological experience, it has been found to be associated with poor health behaviors, heightened stress response, and inadequate physiological repairing activity. With these three major pathways of pathogenesis, loneliness can do much harm; as it impacts both immune and metabolic regulation, altering the levels of inflammatory cytokines, growth factors, acute-phase reactants, chemokines, immunoglobulins, antibody response against viruses and vaccines, and immune cell activity; and affecting stress circuitry, glycemic control, lipid metabolism, body composition, metabolic syndrome, cardiovascular function, cognitive function and mental health, respectively. Taken together, there are too many immunologic and metabolic manifestations associated with the construct of loneliness, and with previous literature showcasing loneliness as a distinct psychological experience and a health determinant, we propose that loneliness, in and of itself, is not just a psychosocial phenomenon. It is also an all-encompassing complex of systemic alterations that occur with it, expanding it into a syndrome of events, linked through a shared network of immunometabolic pathology. This review aims to portray a detailed picture of loneliness as an "immunometabolic syndrome", with its multifaceted pathology.
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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.