Loneliness can be as deadly as smoking: United States Surgeon General

Medical institutions around the world are recognising mental health as a major health concern in today’s times. The Surgeon General of the United States of America, Dr Vivek Murthy, has recently stated that loneliness poses the same magnitude of health threat that smoking does, as per the Associated Press. To be more specific, loneliness can cost your health the same as smoking twelve cigarettes a day. Murthy has further added that experiencing loneliness is a signal your mind sends to indicate that a key element for survival is missing, similar to hunger and thirst.
Dr Vivek Murthy believes that there is no alternative to person-to-person interaction. The statistics say that the number of single households in the United States has doubled in the last 60 years. People between the ages of 15 to 24 years are said to be most affected by loneliness. This problem increased furthermore in the duration of the Covid-19 pandemic that forced the entire world to remain quarantined for a long time. Murthy has thus issued an advisory that aims to spread awareness about loneliness.