Having had a research interest on the impact of 'isolation' on physiology and behaviour of animals, I was intrigued about an article on the potential 'medicalisation' (where it's given disease status) of loneliness in humans (https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2020/aug/06/loneliness-cure-pill-research-scientists). Interest in this phenomenon has, no doubt, been recently accentuated by the Covid-19 pandemic with its lockdowns and social distancing. Loneliness is clearly mainly a problem, when it is chronic (i.e. long-lasting) and it is very evident that people can be lonely in group situations (especially when they feel they don't 'fit in'). What is remarkable, is that currently more then 60% of Americans claim that they 'sometimes or always felt lonely' (up from 50%, only a few years ago). This kind of incidence is strongly attractive to drug companies trying to sell a 'cure'. There are some candidate preparations out there (particularly the steroid Pregnenolone, the 'birth hormone' Oxytocin and even endorphins' generated by physical exercise). I don't doubt, that in some circumstances, they may be helpful (as a pill, a nasal spray or prescribed exercise) but I also think that it is dangerous to even give the impression that they can 'cure' loneliness (in fairness, many of the researchers working on these compounds say the same thing). The developmental and later causes of individual loneliness in humans are clearly incredibly diverse. Any potential method of alleviation might well work in only a small sub-set of cases.
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