The Los Angeles Timesrecently highlighted a study published in Heart, a British Medical Journal publication, that found loneliness can increase the risk of coronary heart disease and stroke by 50%.
If you’re an individualist, you should take note that your health and well-being depend in part on your relationships with others. But those who would put “others” before self had better understand that the risks to them of this error are even greater.
Loneliness is associated with health problems
The so-called “meta-analysis” in Heart looked at 23 different studies from several advanced countries that tracked subjects over periods of between 3 and 21 years. The findings put the risk for heart problems and stroke due to isolation from friends and family groups on the same level as light smoking. They found that isolation made a better predictor of vascular diseases than high blood pressure or obesity.
Isolation can result from a number of factors, including mobility problems and the death of family members and friends. It can also come from a choice to generally stay apart from others.
This study still leaves open the question of whether loneliness resulted in a failure to exercise or see doctors regularly, or in unhealthy habits like overeating, heavy drinking, or smoking, which, in turn, would increase health problems. As the newspaper review observed, “As a result, it's hard to know whether loneliness is a contributor to, the result of, or just another symptom of poor health. And for the same reason, it's hard to know whether programs aimed at getting the socially isolated to re-engage will improve their health, and how.”
But other studies suggest a strong relationship between psychological well-being—which is improved by association with friends and family—and physical health.
Communities are important to the individual
So what are the implications of these findings for individualists—including Objectivists—who argue that each of us should put our personal happiness and well-being first? Individualists argue, correctly, that individuals should be free to choose those associations with others that offer value for them.
Some who fancy themselves as individualists have mistakenly... (Continue reading here.)
