Loneliness: One of the most serious diseases of our age

YOU are probably reading this on your own.

We are in danger of a loneliness epidemic We are in danger of a loneliness epidemic [GETTY - PIC POSED BY MODEL]

Newspapers don’t get read in groups so that much is easy to work out. Perhaps a loved one isn’t far away or perhaps you’re waiting for a friend to visit. Maybe after you’ve read the paper you will have to make yourself a cup of tea because there’s no one to ask if you would like one.

Living alone is not odd or unusual. About 7.6million households have just one person in them and another two million are single parents. There are lots of perks: you get to sleep in a starfish shape, the only wind you worry about is the sort that might bring down a tree on the house and you don’t have to ask anyone’s permission to do whatever you fancy.

But aside from the conundrum of how a single person persuades someone else to take the dustbins out there are plenty of other problems with being on your own.

You might be coping alone due to bereavement, divorce, illness, choice or bad luck but there are no politicians talking about you. They don’t care too much about hard-working singletons or the widowed or tax-paying divorcees even though all those things make you a little more likely to have depression, to be stressed, or ill, or just plain sad.

Single people are more likely to be poor, are less likely to get medical help and even though many are pensioners and more likely to vote no one thinks they are worth a slogan. But perhaps it’s time to stop ignoring people who live on their own. Studies have found that loneliness can shorten your life. In the US researchers discovered the loneliest people over 55 died at almost twice the rate of those who had regular contact with friends and family. Isolation increased their chance of an early death by 14 per cent. It’s more deadly for you than obesity, which in a nation as fat as the US is quite a feat.

UK Macmillan Cancer Support has warned of a loneliness epidemic with the number of cancer patients expected to double in the next two decades. Cancer patients are already likely to be confined to their homes, to be depressed, to be unable to eat properly or look after themselves. The Macmillan survey found that 31 per cent of Scottish cancer sufferers – that’s 58,000 people – were lonelier since they had been diagnosed, along with 16 per cent of cancer patients in Wales and a fifth of those in England.

So not only can loneliness kill you if you have a potentially fatal disease you are more likely to get lonelier. You will lose contact with people, you will feel worse and you will shuffle off the mortal coil a little quicker. 

How is that right or fair or civilised? What does it say about us that when someone is sick or dying they end up feeling even worse than they need to? It’s appalling when you consider that the people who need our help most are the ones least likely to get it, the ones who will have to manage without a pat on the back or someone who offers to pop round and make them a cup of tea. And with an ageing population where people are more likely than ever before to live alone or get divorced, where one partner may live many years after the death of another, this is going to affect many more of us.

Living alone is not odd or unusual

What do you do if you don’t have children or they don’t live nearby? What do you do if you’re not mobile enough to join a club or take up a hobby or sport? What happens when you can’t drive, can’t get out, can’t afford a holiday?

Too often the first sign of someone who has been left alone is a funny smell and post backing up in the mailbox. We used to live in communities where neighbours cared for one another and children felt a responsibility to look after their parents but modern Britain is a place where your families are spread all over and your neighbours barely know your name.

This isn’t something the NHS can fix or the Government can alter although it would be nice if those in power could remember there are 7.6million single people with a vote to exercise. Perhaps if they did the tax system, single-person poverty and health screening would get more attention paid to them.

But as nice as it would be to shift the responsibility for loneliness on to someone else, solving the problem comes down to each of us. Talk to your neighbours. Get back in touch with your family if you have rowed. Get out and about while you can and bank as many friendships as possible. If you know someone on their own ring them. It will happen to you one day and you will need people around you. If you can make others feel noticed while being less lonely yourself then it can’t hurt.

Don’t sit there and tell yourself that no one is bothered. Get out there and show them why they should be bothered.

No man is an island, it’s just that we are all so often cut off from one another. Reach out, make friends, do more, be more. Heck, start a political party for people who live on their own if you like. You’re guaranteed a landslide victory if you do! Remind the world that you exist and then perhaps when you need it the world will take more care of you.