wCHAP.5b

(9/7/98)

CHAPTER V. B.

THE MEDICAL CONSEQUENCES OF LONELINESS

Nurturing companionship not only brings joy to one's life, it affects how long we live. Core ideas from a startling book [1] are presented below. They help to clarify the importance of community and love not only in enhancing life but in prolonging it.

P. xii: [1] "This book touches on complex themes that are in some ways as old as humankind itself, but its purpose is simple: to document the fact that reflected in our hearts there is a biological basis for our need to form loving human relationships. If we fail to fulfill that need, our health is in peril."

P. 3: "The fact is that social isolation, the lack of human companionship, death or absence of parents in early childhood, sudden loss of love, and chronic human loneliness are significant contributors to premature death."

P. 4: "...coronary heart disease is no different from any other cause of death. Cancer, tuberculosis, suicide, accidents, mental disease -- all are significantly influenced by human companionship."

P. 4: "Quite literally, we must either learn to live together or face the possibility of prematurely dying alone."

P. 7: "An entire generation has been raised to believe that dieting, exercise, inoculations, and other forms of preventive care are the means to avoid disease and premature death. The idea that another crucial element influencing well-being is the ability to live together -- to maintain human relationships -- seems strangely 'unscientific' in our age. Yet that is the thesis this book will try to document: loneliness and isolation can literally 'break your heart.'"

RESPONSE: Of course the above ideas match perfectly with the goals of a Science of Religion. Nevertheless, Lynch's studies do broaden this focus to include the dimension of physical health as well as mental health.

P. 8: "Even the most cursory appraisal of our modern culture indicates that something has gone wrong with many human relationships. Almost every segment of our society seems to be deeply afflicted by one of the major diseases of our age -- human loneliness. Yet we do not seem to be waging any kind of effective battle against its lethal domination."

RESPONSE: A Science of Religion is specifically focused to include this issue and deal with all the ramifications of it.

P. 9/10: "All these trends -- rapidly rising divorce rate, the growing number of single-parent households, the slower reentry of divorced individuals back into marriage, and proportional increases in the illegitimate birthrate -- suggest the possibility that in the future the two-parent family may be the exception rather than the rule. (In 1973 husband-wife households constituted 67.8% of all households in the U.S.) As will be documented in this book, all available medical data indicate that these statistical trends portend serious physical and mental health hazards for many Americans in the decades ahead."

RESPONSE: Hopefully, a Science of Religion will be able to impact these matters and help ever increasing numbers of people turn their lives around and achieve a SFLIHM (a Sustainable Feeling that one's LIfe Has Meaning).

P. 13: "...the word love is not indexed in any mainstream physiology textbook that deals with the heart, nor in any physician's manual on the heart. Stress, pain, anxiety, fear, and rage sometimes appear in indexes of textbooks on the heart, but never love ."

P. 18: The Framingham Studies -- 1948 study in the city of Framingham, Massachusetts. "At that time it was a small, rather beautiful and peaceful town of 28,000 people, some 20 miles or so from downtown Boston."

"The mission was clear: find out what causes heart disease."

"To help answer these questions, the medical scientists picked 2,282 healthy men and 2,845 healthy women between the ages of 30 and 62 years, 5,127 volunteers in all, and asked them to participate in a study that might very well last the rest of their lives. Each participant was given a physical examination, including blood tests, electrocardiograms...X rays, and blood readings."

P. 22: "The Framingham investigators began to assert that emotional stress (and specifically divorce) was not related to coronary heart disease."

P. 26: "...the suspicion is growing among medical scientists that social and psychological factors may not only significantly influence the course of heart disease -- they may be the most important of all risk factors!"

P. 27: "Framingham had at least one-third fewer heart problems than they had originally predicted would occur in the town."

P. 28: "Why so many people are still alive and so healthy in Framingham is, I believe, far more interesting than why 26.8 percent have died."

RESPONSE: Lynch puts an interesting and important spin on this study. He makes a powerful case indicating that a key factor in heart disease (actually all disease) has been overlooked. Considering the American attitude of down-playing intimacy, this is not difficult to understand.

P. 26: "...the suspicion is growing among medical scientists that social and psychological factors may not only significantly influence the course of heart disease -- they may be the most important of all risk factors!"

P. 30/31: "Why does the United States still rank 24th among industrialized countries in life expectancy for its male citizens? Why is the mortality rate for males under age 55 double that of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway and six times higher than that of Japan?"

"Is living in the United States a hazard to one's health?"

P. 31: "Diet, smoking, lack of exercise, and faulty living habits have all been identified by the experts as risk factors that affect the incidence of coronary heart disease in various countries. The central assumption of this book is that, in addition to these risk factors, a person's life may be shortened by the lack of human companionship."

P. 32: "Does human companionship help sustain life? Does the lack of companionship hasten death?"

"In order to understand the relationship between human companionship and health, it is important to have at least a general comprehension of the magnitude of heart disease in the United States. Cardiovascular disease kills approximately 1 million individuals in the United States each year, and accounts for more than half of all the deaths, reported in this country."

P. 48: "Almost every type of institution has extraordinarily high proportions of the nonmarried in their populations."

RESPONSE: At some level being able to be married probably already indicates a certain level of health and psychological wellbeing that might keep one out of hospitals, mental wards, jails, etc. Also having someone around in times of emergency would have a similar effect. In addition, we know people will restrain their behavior for those they love and feel responsible for. People who are lonely and desperate are vulnerable to taking dangerous, irrational actions. These factors cannot be ignored when considering institutionalization. However, it seems reasonable to me that there are factors beyond the foregoing that relate the presence or absence of loving relationships and being institutionalized.

One of the primary goals of a CPASR would be to initiate programs and activities to begin to impact society in such a way as to improve the quality of life for more and more people so that they could deal more effectively with life.

P. 52: "At all ages, for both sexes, and for all races in the United States, the nonmarried always have higher death rates, sometimes as much as five times higher than those of married individuals."

P. 67: "But this raises the intriguing question of whether the larger statistical differences in cardiac mortality between married and nonmarried individuals cited...[would] not be even greater if one could statistically sort out those individuals classified as married but who were in fact living in total psychological isolation."

"Drs. Bonami and Risne....observed that men who placed an inordinate emphasis on their work and therefore neglected their wives and families were more likely to develop subsequent cardiac problems."

P. 56: "In his book BEREAVEMENT , Colin Parkes points out that the real cost of a deep personal love for another human being can only be seen in the shattering loss that is felt when that love is suddenly and permanently taken away."

RESPONSE: Or, more properly, the real benefit "of a deep personal love...can only be seen...when that love is...taken away."

P. 62: "About ten years ago a series of studies began to suggest that sudden changes in an individual's life were often followed by the sudden onset of a wide variety of illnesses. Conversely, these same studies began noting that if relatively few changes were occurring in an individual's life, little or no illness would occur. Drs. L.T. Holmes and Richard Rahe at the Naval Neuropsychiatric Unit in San Diego, California, who explored this phenomenon intensively, developed a scale they called the "Life Change Index Scale." They began with a questionnaire, called the "Schedule of Recent Experiences," which had been developed at the University of Washington in Seattle in order to document systematically a variety of life events that had preceded the onset of illness in patients."

P. 63: "In a series of studies in Sweden and Finland, Dr. Rahe and his colleagues Drs. Tores Theorell and Matti Romo began to examine the specific relationships between cardiac disease, sudden death, and life changes. They demonstrated that the development of a myocardial infarction was frequently preceded by an abrupt increase in life change events six months to three months earlier. The greater the changes in life events, the shorter the time interval."

P. 66: "As Drs. Friedman and Rosenman imply, the rise of human loneliness may be one of the most serious sources of cardiovascular disease in the twentieth century."

P. 69: "Children who experience the early disruption of parental contact -- whether through divorce, separation, or death -- are among the very ones who, upon maturation, will contribute in increased numbers to the ranks of those who encounter interpersonal difficulties."

P. 70: "...the intriguing question [must be raised] of whether this major killer [coronary heart disease] can begin in the lonely and broken hearts of childhood."

P. 77: "Of the 91 infants [raised in foundling homes] studied, '34 died in spite of good food and meticulous medical care.'"

"Observations such as these have fortunately led to important changes in the way orphanages and foundling homes care for children."

P. 78: "While most infants and children are not raised in total social isolation, large numbers -- and the number is growing at a rapid rate -- are being raised in homes that could easily become environments of partial social deprivation."

"Hundreds of studies have shown that the lack of parental contact or the early loss of parents can seriously undermine the emotional stability of children. Severe adult depression, dependency, psychosis, various neuroses, and suicide have all been frequently reported among individuals who suffer early parental loss."

RESPONSE: If A NEW FOUNDATION FOR CIVILIZATION reaches a receptive audience interested and willing to work to become Wise Persons and build a Wise Community the above issue should be one of the first ones addressed. Helping even the individual with the most fortunate childhood to become a Wise Person is a difficult task, but to overcome the destructive effects of child abuse and neglect makes the task formidable. However, in keeping with the Ninth Way of Wisdom it is essential to "ensure that every child is provided a loving, nurturing environment, and all the things necessary to become a Wise Person."

P. 79: "Dr. Glueck in the United States and Dr. Greer in Australia have shown that adult sociopathy [2] occurs significantly more often in individuals who have experienced early parental loss."

RESPONSE: It is my current conviction that essentially all psychopathic behavior has its roots in child abuse, neglect, and/or loss.

P. 80: "...when [Arthur] Schmale examined the relationship between separation and depression and the development of physical disease such as cardiovascular disease, he found that a significant number of adult patients in the hospital with physical disease had suffered the early loss of one or both parents. Confronted again as adults with some new loss or the threat of such a loss, these patients tended to become very depressed and developed various physical diseases, including cardiac disorder."

RESPONSE: The goal of a Science of Religion is to overcome all these problems. And, building a Wise Community made up of Wise Persons is the biggest challenge now facing humanity. Everything else is just a detail of how to do this in the right way.

P. 82: "...in another report [Dr. Ralph] Paffenbarger and his colleagues also examined the incidence of suicide...in a sample population of 40,000 students and found that 225 former students committed suicide in the years following graduation....comparing these suicide cases with a larger number of randomly selected former students, they found that those former students who committed suicide were likely to have come from families whose parents were college trained, where the father had a professional status (frequently a physician), parents were separated, or the father died early. Other distinguishing characteristics were exactly the same as for death by coronary heart disease: heavy cigarette smoking, nonparticipation in extracurricular sports, secretiveness, and social isolation."

RESPONSE: And my belief is that social isolation is the key factor and every other self destructive behavior comes out of this deficiency.

P. 88: "The human condition is such that we generally resist hearing, or at least resist incorporating into our behavior, information we do not like."

RESPONSE: And this is the challenge which always must be overcome if we are to move in the direction of becoming our best self. This is part of why it is so unfortunate when those who have achieved positions of power and responsibility in the community use that status to lead persons astray, rather than help them assimilate difficult ideas. Almost all of our leaders work to keep us involved in self destructive belief systems (like current folk religions). We may not initially want to hear about our mortality, our responsibility for each other, the necessity for hard work, the need for continuous self growth, but all of this is necessary if we are to achieve a SFLIHM.

P. 91: "What is it about human contact that makes it so important to our health? Why should marriage be statistically so beneficial to the health of the heart? Why is loneliness so physically destructive? Why do people die of broken hearts?"

P. 99: "The effect of transient human interaction is not limited to changes in heart rate and blood pressure. A large body of scientific literature has shown that our blood chemistry is similarly changed by human companionship."

P. 100/101: "In 1973...the Office of the Surgeon General completed its thorough analysis of American casualties during the war [World War II]. In the volume on neuropsychiatric casualties, the staff of the Surgeon General's Office summarized the main lesson learned from World War II:"

"Perhaps the most significant contribution of World War II military psychiatry was recognition of the sustaining influence of the small combat group on particular members thereof....Repeated observations indicated that the absence or inadequacy of such sustaining influences or their disruption during combat was mainly responsible for psychiatric breakdown in battle. These groups or relationship phenomena explained marked differences in the psychiatric casualty rates of various units who were exposed to a similar intensity of battle stress (p. 995)."

P. 105: "All [12 unselected patients who had previously had cardiac difficulties and had come to Cornell University Medical School hospital complaining of 'chest palpitations.'] had experienced the lack of parental love in childhood, had not married, had encountered serious marital problems, or were divorced."

P. 108: "Drs. Chambers and Reiser found that in 24 of 25 consecutive cases of congestive heart failure they examined at the Cincinnati General Hospital, the onset of the crises had been precipitated by severe emotional upset." Of these the emotional upset for at least 18 of the patients, "all seemed to involve the loss of some type of human love or the loss of security gained from human contact."

P. 113: "If the lack of human love or the memory of earlier personal traumas can disturb the heart, then just as clearly the presence of human love may serve as a powerful therapeutic force, helping the heart to restore itself."

RESPONSE: In a society working to become a Wise Community the above conditions will not exist, or at least ways to overcome their negative effects will be available to all interested persons. Processes for experiencing love in all its varieties and levels will be available to everyone. See Chapter VII, "Romantic Love and a Science of Religion."

P. 115: "It has been estimated that up to one-third of all patients who have had a heart attack fail to return to work not because of physical problems but because of psychological problems. This failure to return to work will itself often lead to increased social isolation, loneliness, and depression -- all of which are quite certain to affect the heart adversely."

RESPONSE: These are the kinds of things a CPASR will address and work to deal with effectively. As the threads of social connection are developed in society, fewer and fewer people will get lost and have no contact to help them do what they need to do to live the highest quality life possible.

P. 120: "The advice given by Dr. George Griffith of the University of Southern California summarizes, as well as any, the state of knowledge about and therapeutic attitudes towards sexuality in the postcoronary patient:"

"'...very frequently a gradual return to the pre-illness sexual routine is accomplished....A loving sexual relationship brings peace and contentment which cannot be obtained at any price.'"

RESPONSE: That sounds like advice many persons need to hear in order to ensure that however long they live they are doing so as fully as possible.

P. 121: "The mere presence of another human being is obviously not an unmitigated blessing for one's health, for unpleasant human interactions may even be physically destructive."

RESPONSE: This is why it is so important to help all persons become their best self so they can be a blessing not only to themselves, but to all other people.

P. 152: "In 1961, Drs. Avery Weisman and Thomas Hackett, physicians at the Massachusetts General Hospital, described a remarkable series of interviews with patients who had lost their will to live and had premonitions that they were going to die imminently. All these patients succumbed almost precisely when they predicted they would. Although they differed widely in the seriousness of their illness (some were not even in critical condition) all had one thing in common: they were lonely and isolated."

P. 153: "...we suspect that...there is a will to live, and that will is fueled by human concern and human companionship. We suspect that the patient who told us that it makes her feel very good to know someone is concerned about her, expressed the source of the will to live most eloquently."

RESPONSE: In my terms a "will to live" is a FLIHM. As I have made clear in many places the core of a FLIHM is social connection -- the richer and deeper and fuller -- the better it is.

P. 154/155: "The full impact of the awesome destructiveness of loneliness, human isolation, and bereavement does not strike home until you look at heartbroken patients 'being saved' by medical technology, lying all alone in coronary care units....They are literally brokenhearted -- there is really no other term to describe it -- and something beyond drugs, heart transplants, coronary bypass operations, or artificial pacemakers is needed to save them."

RESPONSE: And this is the challenge of any who would work to build a Wise Community. Other studies [3] focus on the aspect of hopelessness as a significant threat to human life. "Bleak expectations about oneself and the future bode ill for physical health, a new study finds. Men who cite an abiding sense of such hopelessness die at higher than average rates from heart disease, cancer, and other causes...."

"Hopelessness also exhibits a strong statistical link to the emergence of new cases of heart disease and cancer. Moreover, the link holds up regardless of the presence of other major risk factors for disease and death, including depression, cigarette smoking, high blood pressure, frequent alcohol use, and lack of social support...."

"The findings contradict the widespread notion that hopelessness represents an extreme form of depression....In the new study,hopelessness incurred different, more serious types of damage than depression did...."

"Volunteers' hopelessness was ranked according to the extent to which they agreed or disagreed with the statements 'It is impossible to reach the goals I would like to strive for' and 'The future seems to me to be hopeless, and I can't believe that things are changing for the better.'

"Men reporting moderate to high hopelessness died from all recorded causes at two to three times the rate of those reporting low or no hopelessness; the former group also developed cancer and heart attacks more frequently...."

"Much previous research indicates that optimism in the face of losses and failures promotes mental and physical health, whereas pessimism does the reverse...."

P. 159: "Modern science can roughly be dated back to about 1500, a period now widely known as the Renaissance. The prevailing viewpoint that propelled the scientific revolution between 1500 and 1850 was remarkable in its simplicity. The world was divided into two spheres: one, the physical world, was a world of things and objects which could be measured scientifically; the second, the spiritual world, a nonmaterial sphere of mind, feelings, and thoughts, was a reflection of the human soul, which could not be measured. Science turned its attention exclusively toward the world of things and objects and left the spiritual world of mind and feelings to religion and philosophy."

"Given this dichotomy between mind and matter, between science and religion, it was inevitable that medicine, as a branch of applied science, would also adopt the same distinctions."

RESPONSE: And it is the aim of A NEW FOUNDATION FOR CIVILIZATION to develop a Science of Religion and a Religion of Wisdom based on it which will fulfill the meta-goals of all folk religions. It will take the final step to develop a congruent world view where religion and the other areas of science are working from the same basic assumptions. And at the same time show science where it fits in the greater scheme of things. The dichotomy between mind and matter will be bridged and each person will be able to achieve a feeling that their life has meaning. And this will be done in a way that doesn't require doing things to others that prevent them from achieving a similar state.

P. 181: "In the last several chapters, we have described the heart reactions of dogs, monkeys, horses; cardiac patients; neurotic and schizophrenic patients; the married, divorced, single, and widowed; children and the aged; psychotherapists; coronary care and shock-trauma patients. All this served to emphasize a point that most physicians would readily acknowledge -- human interactions can produce measurable, sometimes dramatic, and occasionally even lethal effects on the heart. These illustrations were also cited to help support the central and certainly more controversial thesis of this book:"

"The lack of human companionship, the sudden loss of love, and chronic human loneliness are significant contributors to serious disease (including cardiovascular disease) and premature death."

P. 182: "...while this health mosaic has pieces still missing, the outlines of the picture are clear enough and the data consistent enough for even the most skeptical to sense that the correlation between deficient human relationships and premature death is worth exploring further."

"But will it be?....while the relationship between disease and loneliness seems both empirically and intuitively obvious, our government has never declared 'war' on loneliness."

RESPONSE: But "war on loneliness" would be the goal of a Wisdom Group. All of its energies would be directed to helping win this "war."

P. 183: "Apart from these medical dilemmas, there is an even larger social paradox. Very few people want to be lonely. Most try to find love. Very few individuals marry with the intention of getting divorced or rejoice over the loss of their children through divorce. No one really wishes to live in constant interpersonal chaos or to be the cause of frequent disruptions of human relationships. Loneliness, the lack of love, divorce, and the loss of one's children or loved ones -- these are not situations enthusiastically embraced by the vast majority of people. Why then are they such common experiences in modern society? How did we manage to create a society in which these signs of disrupted interpersonal relationships seem to be growing so quickly?"

"What can be done to help alleviate the spread of loneliness-induced disease in our society?"

RESPONSE: To the degree that my Science of Religion is properly focused it will eradicate the spread of "loneliness-induced disease" at the most fundamental level.

P. 184: "In light of this historic neglect of social factors in disease, it would seem that the first and most important step medical science could take to alleviate loneliness-induced disease would be to recognize that its own assumptions have affected the way people now behave in our society....In a sense, medical science must acknowledge that its implicit denial of the importance of social factors in physical disease has contributed to, and perhaps even fostered, cultural attitudes that have blinded people to such relationships."

RESPONSE: Medicine as defined and practiced by a Wise Community would differ in many ways from current medicine. Lynch's point discussed above would be only one of many that would change when medicine becomes a prime component of the effort to help an ever expanding number of people achieve a SFLIHM. Each practitioner would be a Wise Person so their goals, behavior, and environment would be very different.

P. 201: "...it has been established that certain predictable psychological reactions occur after human loss -- for example, depression..."

RESPONSE: Lack of clarity about depression has led to the bizarre ways it is currently treated by both medicine and psychotherapy. My best understanding is that depression primarily results from lack of nurturing physical affection. As we build a Wise Community depression will become at least as rare as it is among the Aborigines.

P. 203: "If it did nothing else, formalized religious services did tend to get people together on a weekly basis, make them feel like they were part of a community, and reduce their loneliness."

"It is of interest to note that Comstock and Patridge, in a detailed retrospective study in Maryland, found that men who were frequent attenders of religious services had a coronary mortality rate that was only 60 percent of those who rarely or never attended church. In women, the rate was only 50 percent."

P. 204: "...every institution that gathers people together performs this service to some degree....The agenda of all groups, irrespective of their ostensible reasons for meeting together, includes the satisfaction of this need of people simply to be with one another."

RESPONSE: Work must also be included in the above discussion. For many people their primary connection with other people and society is through their job.

A CPASR would provide every conceivable way for all persons to be joined together in the most satisfying ways possible while performing vital services to humanity.

P. 205/206: "Our common plight is that it is becoming increasingly difficult to share the most basic of all human truths: that people desperately need each other, that we really are dependent on one another....In a conspiracy of silence about their true loneliness, people deceive each other, and so make loneliness and isolation all the more prevalent. Some even go a step further and begin to kid themselves, telling themselves, they are not lonely, that they are self-sufficient, that they don't need anyone. This constant indulgence in self-deception eventually makes it very difficult for them to recognize their own suffering."

RESPONSE: Certainly, until one understands the above truth they may be easily diverted into pointless activities and even self destructive behaviors. Helping persons recognize this idea would be a prime activity of a CPASR. Understanding our true needs and motivations is essential if we are to improve the quality of our life and become our best self.

P. 206/207: "...so many traditions, cultural practices, and beliefs that once provided relief from loneliness have been eroded in the past few decades that a person cannot assume that human companionship will be available when one needs it."

"This means that the burden rests upon each individual to find the support that will help them survive the cyclical disruptions of human bonds that are an inevitable part of life. While this advice appears to be bland enough, it is a sweeping mandate. It suggests that people consider their investments in human companionship as of even greater importance than their investments in other aspects of their lives. As this book has tried to document, human companionship is quite literally an important form of life insurance."

"What can individuals do to combat loneliness? Avoiding loneliness on an individual level within a society that fosters uprootedness, alienation, disconnectedness, and depersonalization is by no means an easy task. Decisions about moving, for example, are often brutally simple -- either move or lose your job. In many facets of our lives, events seem to be out of control. Taking stock of one's current social network therefore requires some recognition of the relationship between alienation and loneliness and a rapidly changing society."

RESPONSE: Life insurance! That's great. Most life insurance pays off when you die. Here's life insurance that keeps you alive -- insures you live.

When CPASRs are formed they will begin to address all these issues. They will provide ways to ensure that the current practices that destroy intimacy will not be tolerated.

On the one hand most of the things that provided community must be disposed of or at least drastically changed. Religions, tribal affiliations, class groupings, elitist social groupings, etc. have all traditionally prevented their members from developing their fullest positive human potential. They must be replaced in most instances by the various components of CPASRs. Obviously, some elements of ethnic diversity and variety need to be maintained as long as they do not cut one off from the prime bond -- to all other human beings.

Although in the final analysis, each person must take the step to join a CPASR, it is critical that each CPASR do everything in its power to show those who have not joined what they are missing and all the ways they will be helped by affiliating with one.

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1. THE BROKEN HEART: The Medical Consequences of Loneliness, James J. Lynch, Basic Books, New York, 1977.

2. A psychopathic personality with behavior that is aggressively antisocial.

3. SCIENCE NEWS, "Hopelessness Tied to Heart, Cancer Deaths," Volume 149, p. 230, Washington, D.C., April 12, 1996.

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