The Studies Show Tom Chivers and Stuart Ritchie

We can all agree that being lonely is bad. But apparently, science shows it’s really, really bad. Indeed, being lonely is so dangerous to your health that its equivalent to smoking 15 cigarettes a day. And it gets worse: we’re in the middle of a loneliness epidemic, meaning that the health of millions is at risk.
In this episode of The Studies Show, Tom and Stuart ask two questions: is there actually a loneliness epidemic? And does it make sense to compare loneliness to something as bad for you as smoking cigarettes?
The Studies Show is brought to you by Works in Progress magazine. Click here to see the latest issue, packed with essays on YIMBYism, clinical research, Russian history, railway tunnels, and more.
Show notes
* The US Surgeon General’s report into “Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation”
* Articles on the loneliness epidemic from the BBC, NPR, the BBC again, the New York Times, the New York Times again, and Science magazine
* 2023 article in The Times (London) that makes the 15-cigarettes-a-day comparison
* The 2017 Jo Cox report on “Combatting Loneliness”
* 2010 meta-analysis of social relationships and mortality risk
* American Time Use Survey, 2003-2020
* Meta-Gallup poll from 2022 on “The Global State of Social Connections”
* Are US older adults getting lonelier (2019 study)? What about “emerging adults” (2021 meta-analysis)?
* Comparison between younger-old people and older-old people on their loneliness levels
* 2017 review study on the health effects of loneliness
* 2023: systematic review no.1, systematic review no.2, both into the effects of loneliness on health
* 2005 study on the health effects of smoking tobacco
Credits
* The Studies Show is produced by Julian Mayers at Yada Yada Productions.


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The evidence for puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones for young people with gender dysphoria is “remarkably weak”. That’s according to the Cass Review, a new in-depth report commissioned by NHS England.
As you might imagine, the report’s conclusions have been somewhat controversial. In this paid-subscriber-only episode of The Studies Show, Tom and Stuart read through the Cass Report, consider the arguments of its critics, and try to put the whole thing in context.

Several previous episodes of The Studies Show have covered depression and treatments for it, but none have really considered what depression is. It’s time to do that. It turns out that some scientists have made serious critiques of the standard way of thinking about depression, and argue that we need a revolution in the way we measure it.
In this episode of The Studies Show, Tom and Stuart take nothing for granted - they look into the idea of “latent variables”, read the studies critiquing the concept of a single, monolithic “depression”, and talk about what this all means for how we treat people with these often-terrible symptoms.
We’re proud to be sponsored by Works in Progress magazine, which is, as they put it, “a magazine of new and underrated ideas to improve the world”. You can find their beautifully-illustrated and detailed essays on all kinds of scientific and technological subjects at worksinprogress.co.
Show notes
* Our World in Data on depression prevalence
* And covering some of the problems in estimating depression prevalence
* Meta-analysis on antidepressant trials
* Study looking at how depression rates have (or haven’t) changed over time
* Article criticising the serotonin hypothesis of depression…
* …and a rebuttal
* Study showing how tricky it is to find replicable brain correlates of things like depression
* Eiko Fried’s website, with his blog and links to his papers
* Study on “the 52 symptoms of major depression”
* Study showing how depression measures might not be measuring the same thing over time
* Study showing that the same seems not to be true for intelligence
* Article “revisiting” (strongly critiquing) the theoretical and empirical basis for depression research
* A new-ish statistical way of thinking about the symptoms of depression: as part of a dynamic network
Credits
The Studies Show is produced by Julian Mayers at Yada Yada Productions.


This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thestudiesshowpod.com/subscribe

Everything is Predictable: How Bayes' Remarkable Theorem Explains the World. That’s the new book—out on April 25 in the UK and May 7 in the US—by our very own Tom Chivers!
In this episode of The Studies Show, Tom and Stuart cover some of the historical sections of the book, and talk about where some of our basic ideas about probability come from (it turns out to be a weird combination of inveterate gamblers and Presbyterian ministers).
The Studies Show is sponsored by Works in Progress Magazine - the best place online to find deep discussions of the ideas that have driven human progress, and that might drive it even further in future. The latest issue of Works in Progress is available right now, at worksinprogress.co.
Show notes
* The only citation that matters this week: Tom’s new book, Everything is Predictable. It’s available NOW for pre-order in the UK, and in the US.
* And for those reading this on Substack, here’s the rather lovely front cover:
Credits
The Studies Show is produced by Julian Mayers at Yada Yada Productions.


This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thestudiesshowpod.com/subscribe

Microplastics are everywhere: there are teeny-tiny plastic particles in your drinking water, your food, your air - and perhaps even in your internal organs. How worried should you be?
In this episode of The Studies Show, Tom and Stuart look into the research on microplastics, covering all the reasons that the health effects of microscopic particles are not straightforward to study. They also look in detail at a scary new study that apparently found, according to one headline, that microplastics “could raise [your] risk of stroke and heart attack”.
Russian serfs! Railroad tunnels! Silkworms! The Zika virus! What do they all have in common? They’re all the subjects of fascinating, data-rich articles in the latest issue of Works in Progress magazine. We’re proud to say that Works in Progress sponsors The Studies Show.
Show notes
* The website of The Ocean Cleanup: the org removing vast amounts of macroplastic from the seas, and stopping it getting there in the first place
* Zebrafish study showing how dyes can leach out of microplastics and cause confusion for researchers
* Study on the effects of the solvent/dispersant, as well as the characteristics of micrplastics, on cells
* Review study noting the problem of bouyancy for in vitro microplastic studies
* Review of health effects of microplastics, with a list of methodological problems for the field (and suggestions for how to solve them)
* Another even more recent review
* Widely-cited 2017 study of mice and microplastics…
* …strongly criticised in a follow-up letter
* The new NEJM study on microplastics, carotid artery plaques, and health
* Coverage in the Guardian, The Conversation, and Medical Xpress
Credits
The Studies Show is produced by Julian Mayers at Yada Yada Productions.


This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thestudiesshowpod.com/subscribe

As an extra way of thanking our paid subscribers, we’re going to post some shorter episodes in addition to the usual weekly hour-long ones.
This first short episode (available to everyone for free; after this they’re paid-only) is about the idea of Emotional Intelligence. Does your “EQ” matter as much as your “IQ”? How can you even test that, anyway?
To listen to future short episodes, as well as accessing all our paid-only stuff, you need to become a paid subscriber. Go to www.thestudiesshowpod.com/subscribe to see the options.
Show notes
* Useful debate paper from 2022 between proponents and sceptics of emotional intelligence research
Credits
The Studies Show is produced by Julian Mayers at Yada Yada Productions.


This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thestudiesshowpod.com/subscribe