Michelle Dickinson: Cold and lonely

Loneliness doesn't just make a person feel worse when they have a cold but also seems to have wide-ranging impacts on health and well-being. Photo / 123RF

With winter upon us, a runny nose, scratchy throat and constant sneezing are just a few of the symptoms of the common cold that will keep many of us at home for a few days at least.

New research suggests that our response to colds and illnesses - i.e. how bad we actually feel when we're sick - is linked not only to the severity of the illness, but also our emotional well-being.

Published in the American Psychological association's journal, Health Psychology, the study explored how symptoms of the common cold are perceived.

If that perception can be improved - meaning patients feel less ill - that could potentially translate into a real reduction in the experience of illness symptoms, reducing healthcare costs and the broader economic burden of winter colds, and improving people's well-being.

Colds are caused by tiny viruses, with the most common being the rhinovirus. The virus attaches to the lining of the nose or throat of the new host, sending the host's body into defence mode, creating inflammation and mucus in the areas under attack - usually the nose and throat.

Many of us try to minimise the symptoms of a cold by using pain relievers and decongestants, but with all of this energy being spent on fighting the cold virus, the infected person is usually left feeling tired and miserable for a few days as their body works to fight against the virus.

Not only is this not fun, but it's also expensive, makes patients less productive and costs the country millions in lost time at work each year.

The study took 213 volunteers and initially explored their emotional state - friends, family and how they felt in life.

The researchers gave each volunteer nasal drops infected with a strain of rhinovirus and 159 of the volunteers became infected. They were then quarantined with minimal human contact in individual rooms for five days.

It's hard to know whether one person's experience of a cold is better or worse than another's - "feeling ill" is difficult to quantify and measure.

In addition to measuring the physical symptoms of the infected volunteers, the study also examined how the volunteers perceived they felt during their illness by asking them to record the severity of their symptoms and emotional state in a daily diary.

The researchers found that volunteers who had reported feeling lonelier in the initial interview felt they were experiencing much more severe symptoms than those who had stated they were less lonely - even when their measured mucus levels were the same.

The research concluded that how lonely a person perceives they are has a greater effect on how they feel with a cold than the illness itself.

Other studies have also found perceived loneliness to be associated with negative health outcomes, including higher incidence of coronary heart disease, obesity and a 26 per cent increase in the odds of premature death.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that people who were lonely had greater inflammation, a weaker immune response and higher levels of monocytes in their blood than those who were not lonely which can cause lower antiviral responses and increased inflammation.

While we don't understand the mechanism yet, loneliness seems to have wide-ranging impacts on our health and well-being.

It will be interesting to see how treatment strategies respond to these findings - and others that will follow over time.

Understanding the role of emotional wellbeing and the impact of perceived loneliness on health outcomes may move treatment further beyond just addressing the symptoms, and perhaps see a broader focus on a patient's well-being.