Loneliness is the number one physical killer in America today.  That’s what Dr. James Lynch, medical researcher at Johns Hopkins, contends.  He has written a book entitled, The Broken Heart.

Using actuarial tables from ten years of research, Dr. Lynch tells us that those who live alone -- single, widowed, or divorced -- have premature death rates from two to ten times higher than individuals who live with others.  Living alone, he says, does not necessarily produce loneliness, but the two are often related.

Among divorced people, suicide is five times higher and fatal car accidents four times higher.

People who live alone visit physicians more frequently than do married people and stay in hospitals twice as long for identical illnesses.

What does all this say?  Dr. Lynch convincingly argues that loneliness produces physical illness and that people literally die of a broken heart.

What lonely person do you know for whom you may be the preventive medicine of hope and life?