The Surprising Connection between Loneliness and Your Metabolic Health

When it comes to managing blood sugar, maintaining a healthy weight, and keeping your overall health on track, it’s easy to think that the only things that matter are what you eat and how you exercise. But diet and exercise are only two small contributors to your metabolic health. 

Research shows that social connection plays a major factor in overall health. If you or someone you love is struggling with loneliness, know you’re not alone. Loneliness has historically been thought to most often impact older adults, but it’s becoming increasingly common among younger adults, especially in recent years.¹ 

In a January 2024 poll, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) found that 30% of adults aged 18 to 34 reported feelings of loneliness every day or several times in the past week. While experts have known about the strong connection between social isolation and perceived loneliness and health for a long time, a March 2023 paper in Frontiers in Psychiatry spells out very clearly that chronic loneliness is associated with two of the most pressing public health concerns of our time: mental illness and metabolic health.^{2, 3}

In this article, you’ll learn how social isolation can impact your metabolic health and strategies to improve social connection for a healthier and happier life, whether you personally feel alone or someone you love is struggling with loneliness.

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What is Metabolic Health? 

Your metabolic health refers to how well your body can create energy from the food you eat (including protein, carbohydrates, and fat) and energy that is stored in your body. Because metabolic health encompasses every cellular reaction in your body, it really is a measure of your overall health. 

Indicators of poor metabolic health include high blood sugar, elevated triglycerides, low HDL cholesterol, elevated blood pressure, and extra abdominal fat. Having three or more of these indicators has a strong association with an increased risk of heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and other serious health conditions.⁴

Impacts of Social Isolation and Loneliness

Based on what we commonly hear about things like diabetes or heart disease, you may be wondering how feelings of loneliness could possibly increase your risk. The connection between the two stems from the cascading effect feelings of loneliness have on your body. 

On a biological level, feeling lonely can increase stress in the body, and if stress is high too often, the effects can be seen as poor health outcomes. Researchers think that this stems from a disruption of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis (HPA axis), which leads to high cortisol levels. This can then increase glucose and insulin levels, promoting dyslipidemia, high blood pressure, and fat storage in the abdominal area. This disruption may also impact bone health and psychiatric disorders like depression and anxiety.⁵ 

In addition to actually impacting how your body metabolizes and uses the food you eat, chronically feeling lonely can lead to poor lifestyle choices. Feelings of loneliness can increase the chances that you’re more sedentary, eat nutritionally inadequate foods, drink too much alcohol, smoke or use drugs, or have poor sleep habits. These poor lifestyle habits are detrimental to metabolic health, and feeling lonely or socially isolated can make it more challenging to make healthier choices.⁶

Ways Feeling Lonely Can Impact Your Health

Now that we know loneliness doesn’t just affect your feelings but can substantially impact your physical health, too, let’s look a little closer at each of the ways feeling lonely is bad for your metabolic health. 

Increased Stress

As feelings of loneliness increase the stress response in your body, chronically elevated cortisol levels can take a toll. When your body is under stress, it prepares for fight or flight by releasing more sugar into the bloodstream so you have access to more energy. But when you’re chronically stressed without the need to expend that energy (by fighting or fleeing), your blood sugar levels can remain high. This can lead to insulin resistance and increase the risk of diabetes.⁷

Higher Inflammation

A January 2024 study found a strong connection between feelings of loneliness or social isolation and increased inflammation, specifically systemic chronic inflammation. Systemic inflammation is associated with metabolic diseases like high cholesterol, obesity, type 2 diabetes, and metabolic syndrome.^{8, 9}

Poor Sleep

While the relationship between loneliness, social isolation, and sleep is complicated, research has found that reported feelings of loneliness often result in lower sleep quality from increased sleep disruption. Then, down the chain of reactions, poor sleep leads to a dysregulated metabolism and increases the likelihood of poor lifestyle choices, perpetuating the cycle.^{10, 11}

Poor Lifestyle Choices

Whether one causes the other, there’s a high chance of loneliness coexisting with cigarette use, alcohol misuse, and drug use. In one survey, 63 percent of adults diagnosed with drug or alcohol abuse report feeling lonely.¹²

Unhealthy Eating Patterns 

While dieting and restrictive eating behaviors can lead to loneliness, feeling lonely and social isolation are associated with decreased diet quality. People who are lonely tend to eat fewer fruits and vegetables and may eat higher amounts of high-sugar, high-fat foods in an attempt to improve their mood.¹³ 

<div class="pro-tip"><strong>Also Read: </strong><a href=depression-and-blood-sugar>How Depression and Anxiety Relate to Your Blood Sugar</a></a>.</div>

Ways to Combat Loneliness For Better Health

Life circumstances, health conditions, or physical location can all contribute to feelings of loneliness, and it’s not always in your control. But no matter what, you can make the decision to improve your social life and feel part of a community again. Here are a few things you can do to improve your social connections and possibly your health. 

Focus on Quality Connections

Meaningful connections with just a few people may help you feel more connected than having numerous acquaintances. If you can’t visit in person, pick up the phone and call some of the people who mean a lot to you in life. Video chats make it easy to connect to people who live far from you or if you have difficulty getting around or out of the house. 

Find a New Hobby

If you’re new to an area or desire more routine social interaction, find a local club or event to attend. Libraries and community centers often offer free or low-cost classes or meetings to learn new skills like gardening, crocheting, or cooking. Local gyms or high schools may have classes or clubs like pickleball, tennis, or basketball open to the community. If you can’t leave the house, look for virtual meetings or classes offered. Search in your area and find something new to try and meet new people in the process! 

Get Out of the House

If you can, getting out of the house and doing activities like working or walking in a new location can help you feel like you’re part of a community and make it easier to be social. Take your work or a book to a coffee shop, walk on a community walking path, or eat lunch at the park. Fresh air can help lift your spirits, and you may find some good conversations with those you run into. 

Prioritize Self Care

Make taking care of your own needs a top priority. Getting enough sleep, eating balanced meals, and engaging in physical activity can all help improve your health and mood, making it easier to find joy in interacting with others. 

The Bottom Line

Loneliness impacts more than just your mood. Feeling less socially connected than you want to be, especially over long periods, can hurt your physical health as well, increasing the risk of weight gain, diabetes, high blood pressure, dyslipidemia, and other metabolic conditions. Trying new hobbies, getting out of the house, prioritizing self-care, and emphasizing quality, meaningful connections may help you feel more connected to the people and community around you. 

<div class="pro-tip"><strong>Learn More: </strong><a href=signs-metabolic-health-out-of-balance>6 Signs Your Metabolic Health Is Out of Balance (And What to Do About It)</a>.</div>