Author
Listed:
- Chun Shen
(Fudan University
Ministry of Education
University of Cambridge)
- Ruohan Zhang
(University of Warwick)
- Jintai Yu
(Fudan University)
- Barbara J. Sahakian
(Fudan University
University of Cambridge
University of Cambridge)
- Wei Cheng
(Fudan University
Ministry of Education
Fudan University)
- Jianfeng Feng
(Fudan University
Ministry of Education
University of Warwick
Zhangjiang Fudan International Innovation Center)
Abstract
The biology underlying the connection between social relationships and health is largely unknown. Here, leveraging data from 42,062 participants across 2,920 plasma proteins in the UK Biobank, we characterized the proteomic signatures of social isolation and loneliness through proteome-wide association study and protein co-expression network analysis. Proteins linked to these constructs were implicated in inflammation, antiviral responses and complement systems. More than half of these proteins were prospectively linked to cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, stroke and mortality during a 14 year follow-up. Moreover, Mendelian randomization (MR) analysis suggested causal relationships from loneliness to five proteins, with two proteins (ADM and ASGR1) further supported by colocalization. These MR-identified proteins (GFRA1, ADM, FABP4, TNFRSF10A and ASGR1) exhibited broad associations with other blood biomarkers, as well as volumes in brain regions involved in interoception and emotional and social processes. Finally, the MR-identified proteins partly mediated the relationship between loneliness and cardiovascular diseases, stroke and mortality. The exploration of the peripheral physiology through which social relationships influence morbidity and mortality is timely and has potential implications for public health.
Suggested Citation
Chun Shen & Ruohan Zhang & Jintai Yu & Barbara J. Sahakian & Wei Cheng & Jianfeng Feng, 2025.
"Plasma proteomic signatures of social isolation and loneliness associated with morbidity and mortality,"
Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 9(3), pages 569-583, March.
Handle:
RePEc:nat:nathum:v:9:y:2025:i:3:d:10.1038_s41562-024-02078-1
DOI: 10.1038/s41562-024-02078-1
Download full text from publisher
As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.
Corrections
All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:nathum:v:9:y:2025:i:3:d:10.1038_s41562-024-02078-1. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.
If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.
We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .
If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.
For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .
Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through
the various RePEc services.