Adults ‘become lonelier from age 50’

File image of a man looking out of a window to symbolise loneliness

Adults start to get lonelier from around the age of 50, after a flurry of social activity in early middle age, scientists have found.

An analysis of nine long-term studies of nearly 130,000 people from Western countries found a striking “u-shaped” pattern of loneliness throughout life.

People reported feeling lonely as young adults, which researchers said coincided with leaving school or university and perhaps moving away to look for work.

However, loneliness levels begin decreasing across the board for people in their 30s and 40s, reaching a low at around 50 before starting to rise again and continuing to get worse for the rest of life.

“What was striking was how consistent the uptick in loneliness is in older adulthood,” said study author Dr Eileen Graham, an associate professor at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.

Researchers believe that younger middle-aged adults are the least lonely because they are often working and raising children, meaning they have lots of social interactions.

However, as children begin to leave home and retirement approaches, many people can start to lose contact with social groups, such as parents of children’s friends or work colleagues.

“As people age and develop through young adulthood into midlife, they start to set down roots and become established, solidifying adult friend groups, social networks and life partners,”  Dr Tomiko Yoneda, assistant professor of psychology at the University of California, Davis.

“We do have evidence that married people tend to be less lonely, so for older adults who are not married, finding ongoing points of meaningful social contact will likely help mitigate the risk of persistent loneliness.”

Researchers looked at loneliness levels in people from countries including England, Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands, the US and Australia.

Previous research has found that loneliness and social isolation can increase the risk of premature death to levels that are comparable to a daily smoking habit.

The study also found individuals with higher persistent loneliness were disproportionately women, more isolated, less educated, had lower income and were more likely to be disabled.

They were also more likely to be divorced or widowed, smoke and have poorer cognitive, physical or mental health.

All of the nine longitudinal studies were conducted before the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, when many researchers found loneliness became even more pronounced.

The team said that the problem is so bad that GPs should inquire how lonely patients are as part of health checks.

“Our study is unique because it harnessed the power of all these datasets to answer the same question — ‘How does loneliness change across the lifespan, and what factors contribute to becoming more or less lonely over time?’

In 2014, researchers at the University of Chicago and the University of California discovered that loneliness triggers physical responses in the body which make people sick.

It appears to trigger the ‘fight or flight’ stress signal which affects the production of white blood cells.

It also increases activity in genes which produce inflammation in the body while lowering activity in genes which fight off illness, promoting high levels of inflammation in the body.

The research was published in the journal Psychological Science.

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