Excerpts from our conversation with Dr. Cole, who heads the NIH-funded Social Genomics Core Laboratory at the University of California, Los Angeles
Dr. Steve Cole. (newsinhealth.nih.gov)
NIHNiH: Why is feeling lonely so damaging to people?
Cole: People haven’t evolved to live alone. We’re highly dependent on others from birth on. Humans aren’t like other animals. We’re not that big, we’re not that strong, and we don’t have big long teeth. The way we’ve come to rule the world is by banding together in groups, which are capable of doing things that no one of us by ourselves could do. Our survival and thriving depends on being part of a community. When we fall out of that sense of connection and community, our bodies respond to that as if we were literally threatened….