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ScienceDaily于2026年10月10日报道了一项关于孤独与健康年限的研究，原论文发表于8月20日。社交接触少与感觉孤独有什么区别，大样本中的健康差异又能说明什么？

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Being around other people does not always stop someone from feeling lonely. A ScienceDaily report on October 10, 2026, describes a study that helps explain this difference. It links both loneliness and limited social contact with fewer years of good health. The paper appeared in Nature Communications on August 20. Its findings raise a practical question: is having more contact with others the same as feeling connected?

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身边有其他人，并不总能让一个人不再感到孤独。ScienceDaily在2026年10月10日的一篇报道中介绍了一项研究，它有助于解释这种区别。研究发现，孤独感和有限的社交接触都与更少的健康年限有关。论文于8月20日发表在《自然·通讯》上。其结果提出了一个实际问题：与别人有更多接触，是否就等于感到彼此有联系？

Researchers separate two ideas that people often mix together. Social isolation means having few social connections. Loneliness means feeling unhappy with the quality of those connections. Someone may meet many people but still feel that close support is missing. Another person may have a small social circle and feel satisfied. Counting contacts therefore gives only part of the picture.

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研究人员区分了两个常被人们混为一谈的概念。社交隔离是指社交联系很少。孤独感则是对这些联系的质量感到不满意。一个人可能见到很多人，却仍觉得缺少亲近的支持。另一个人的社交圈可能很小，但他仍感到满意。因此，统计接触人数只能呈现情况的一部分。

The team used information from 277,489 adults in the UK Biobank, a large British collection of health information. They were aged 40 to 69 when they joined. At the start, they did not have any of seven major conditions being studied. These included heart disease, cancer, depression and anxiety. The researchers used age 50 as their starting point for estimating future years without these conditions.

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研究团队使用了英国生物样本库中277,489名成年人的信息，这是一个大型的英国健康信息集合。他们加入时的年龄为40至69岁。研究开始时，他们没有患上所研究的七种主要疾病中的任何一种。这些疾病包括心脏病、癌症、抑郁症和焦虑症。研究人员以50岁为起点，估算今后未患这些疾病的年限。

Compared with people who were neither lonely nor socially isolated, men who experienced both were estimated to have 5.8 fewer years without depression or anxiety. For women, the difference was 3.7 years. The gaps for years without major physical disease were smaller: 1.7 years for men and 2.4 for women. These figures describe differences between groups. They do not mean every lonely person will lose that many years of life.

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与既不孤独也未处于社交隔离状态的人相比，同时经历两者的男性预计未患抑郁症或焦虑症的年限少5.8年。女性的差距为3.7年。未患主要身体疾病的年限差距较小：男性为1.7年，女性为2.4年。这些数字描述的是群体之间的差异。它们并不意味着每一个孤独的人都会少活那么多年。

Healthy habits added another important detail. Better diet, regular exercise, enough sleep and not smoking were linked with a smaller gap in healthy years for socially isolated people. However, the researchers did not find a statistically clear reduction in the gap linked with loneliness. This suggests that the two problems may need different responses. It does not show that healthy habits have no value for people who feel lonely.

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健康习惯带来了另一个重要细节。更好的饮食、规律运动、充足睡眠和不吸烟，与社交隔离人群的健康年限差距较小有关。不过，研究人员没有发现与孤独感相关的差距在统计上明确缩小。这提示，这两个问题可能需要不同的应对方式。它并不表明健康习惯对感到孤独的人没有价值。

The study followed people’s lives rather than testing a treatment. It can show links, but it cannot prove that loneliness or isolation caused the health differences. The researchers plan to examine other populations and carry out trials to test cause and effect. For now, the findings suggest that understanding social health requires asking about both the number of connections and how people feel about them.

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这项研究跟踪了人们的生活，而不是测试一种治疗方法。它能显示关联，但不能证明孤独感或社交隔离造成了健康差异。研究人员计划考察其他人群，并开展试验来检验因果关系。目前，这些结果提示，要理解社交健康，需要既询问联系的数量，也了解人们对这些联系的感受。

新闻来源

• ScienceDaily · Loneliness may steal nearly 6 years of good health
• Euronews · La solitude et l’isolement social peuvent vous faire perdre jusqu’à six années de vie en bonne santé
• Nature Communications · Associations of loneliness, social isolation and healthy lifestyle with life expectancy free of major physical disease and mental disorder
• Tulane University · Lonely? Socially isolated? Study finds it may cost you six healthy years of life

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