CAN LONELINESS BE SEEN IN YOUR DNA?

A study by medical researcher Steve Cole explored the relationship between subjective social isolation (or loneliness) and gene expression in leukocyte cells in a group of chronically lonely and socially integrated people. Analysis identified 209 genes with a greater than 30% difference in average expression levels between the lonely and non-lonely groups. In the lonely group, significantly more genes were downregulated (red) than upregulated (green): 131 to 78.