Loneliness: Why it Hurts More Than You Think – DW – 07/11/2025
How the Covid-19 pandemic deepened our loneliness
Loneliness is rising — especially among the young. What lockdowns did to friendships, families, and our need for real human connection.
Loneliness hurts — and it's hardwired in our brains
For millennia, we lived in groups to survive. Our brains still crave connection — and when it's missing, loneliness can hurt like physical pain.
Why men's depression often goes unnoticed
Anger, risk-taking, silence: men's depression can look different. Gender-sensitive therapy is helping men open up — and heal.
How a student picnic is fighting social isolation
New city, new start — and sometimes, no friends. These students launched a women-only picnic to help others feel seen, supported, and less alone.
Can a nasal spray help us connect?
Researchers tested an oxytocin spray to ease social barriers. The bonding hormone showed promise in helping people feel more connected.
Dancing – the best remedy against loneliness
Helma lost her dance partner and husband — but with Agilando, she found a way to stay active, connected, and joyful in older age.
DW English
SAT 12.07.2025 – 09:30 UTC
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DW
2 days ago
- DW
Loneliness: Why it Hurts More Than You Think – DW – 07/11/2025
Loneliness changes how we think, feel, and even how we heal. In Good Shape explores how isolation harms us, and what helps us reconnect. How the Covid-19 pandemic deepened our loneliness Loneliness is rising — especially among the young. What lockdowns did to friendships, families, and our need for real human connection. Loneliness hurts — and it's hardwired in our brains For millennia, we lived in groups to survive. Our brains still crave connection — and when it's missing, loneliness can hurt like physical pain. Why men's depression often goes unnoticed Anger, risk-taking, silence: men's depression can look different. Gender-sensitive therapy is helping men open up — and heal. How a student picnic is fighting social isolation New city, new start — and sometimes, no friends. These students launched a women-only picnic to help others feel seen, supported, and less alone. Can a nasal spray help us connect? Researchers tested an oxytocin spray to ease social barriers. The bonding hormone showed promise in helping people feel more connected. Dancing – the best remedy against loneliness Helma lost her dance partner and husband — but with Agilando, she found a way to stay active, connected, and joyful in older age. DW English SAT 12.07.2025 – 09:30 UTC SUN 13.07.2025 – 00:30 UTC MON 14.07.2025 – 02:30 UTC TUE 15.07.2025 – 11:30 UTC WED 16.07.2025 – 06:30 UTC WED 16.07.2025 – 19:30 UTC THU 17.07.2025 – 15:30 UTC Lagos UTC +1 | Cape Town UTC +2 | Nairobi UTC +3 Delhi UTC +5,5 | Bangkok UTC +7 | Hong Kong UTC +8 London UTC +1 | Berlin UTC +2 | Moscow UTC +3 San Francisco UTC -7 | Edmonton UTC -6 | New York UTC -4
Int'l Business Times
5 days ago
- Int'l Business Times
Bitter Pill: Cuba Runs Low On Life-saving Medicines
Cuban Jessica Rodriguez never knows if she will find the medicines that keep her four-year-old son alive in a country that has all but run out of essential drugs. On a near daily basis she sprints from one state-run pharmacy to another on a quest for pills and syringes. Increasingly, she has to turn to the black market and pay the higher prices there. That is if they have what she needs. Rodriguez, who left her job as a physiotherapist to care for her sickly son, receives a monthly state grant of less than $12. Her husband's salary is not much more. And as Cuba sinks ever deeper into its worst economic crisis in decades -- with critical shortages also of food and fuel, regular power blackouts and rampant inflation -- Rodriguez fears that one day the drugs may run out altogether. "It drives me crazy," the 27-year-old told AFP at her home in Havana's Santa Fe neighborhood as her son Luis Angelo, watched a cartoon on her mobile. "Missing a dose, not having the suction tubes, a catheter that cannot be replaced... all can lead to serious illnesses which can cost him his life." Luis Angelo was born with a deformed esophagus, and while he waits to receive a transplant, breathes through a tracheostomy and eats though a tube inserted into his stomach. He is also asthmatic, has a heart condition, and suffers epileptic fits. The boy takes seven different drugs daily, and needs a variety of tubes, syringes and other equipment to administer them. Cuba, reputed for supplying highly trained medical doctors to other countries and for its advanced domestic pharmaceutical industry, has long counted vaccines and medical services among its top exports. Under US sanctions since 1962, and hard hit by the COVID-19 pandemic that all but tanked its tourism industry, the communist country is now no longer medically self-sufficient. Last year, the island nation of 9.7 million people could not afford the $300 million needed to import the raw materials it needed to produce hundreds of critical medicines. In Havana, and further afield, pharmacy shelves are bare and hospitals lack basic supplies such as gauze, suturing thread, disinfectant and oxygen. "There are days when there's nothing," a doctor in the capital told AFP on condition of anonymity. Cuba's healthcare system is public and meant to be universally accessible. Private pharmacies, clinics and hospitals are illegal. Patients who require chronic medicine are issued with a document known as a "tarjeton," which allows them access to subsidized medicines. Luis Angelo has a "tarjeton," but it is of little use if pharmacies don't have the drugs, said his mom. On the black market, she is forced to pay $3 to $4 for a blister sheet of pills -- about a quarter of the average monthly Cuban salary at the unofficial exchange rate. "The price is cruel," Rodriguez told AFP. Confronted with the ever-worsening medicine shortage, the government has since 2021 allowed travelers to bring back food and medicines in their luggage -- though not for resale. Some of these drugs are feeding a black market that profits from the desperately infirm with sales via WhatsApp or internet sites. Other sites, however, offer drugs for free or barter them for food. In the NGO sphere, projects have also emerged to provide medicines to Cubans free of charge. One, dubbed Palomas, has helped tens of thousands of people since its creation in Havana in 2021. It relies on medicines that people have "left over from a treatment, or were brought by someone from abroad," coordinator Sergio Cabrera told AFP. Every day, in 13 WhatsApp groups, Palomas publishes a list of medicines it has available, and another list of those it needs. One beneficiary was 32-year-old dentist Ibis Montalban, who said she managed to get her mother's chronic diabetes medication through Palomas, adding: "thank you, thank you, thank you." Cabrera says it is hard to witness the suffering of people in need. "Many people cry here, and many times we cry with them," he said, grateful that Palomas can at least offer " a ray of hope." Four-year-old Luis Angelo requires seven different medications a day AFP Private pharmacies, clinics and hospitals are illegal in communist Cuba AFP Cuban pharmacy shelves are bare AFP
Int'l Business Times
6 days ago
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Medical Groups Sue US Health Secretary Over Covid-19 Vaccine Change
Several leading medical groups filed suit against US Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Monday, accusing him of endangering public health with new Covid-19 vaccine recommendations. At the end of May, Kennedy announced via social media that federal authorities would no longer recommend Covid-19 vaccines for children and pregnant women, resulting in blowback from health experts. In the lawsuit, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), the American College of Physicians (ACP) and other leading medical groups are calling on the court to stop Kennedy's "unilateral, unscientific" directive and restore the Covid-19 vaccine to immunization schedules. "It is really unconscionable to take away a parent's ability and choice to protect their children through vaccination," said Tina Tan, a pediatrician and president of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, one of the plaintiffs. Since taking office, Kennedy -- who spent decades spreading vaccine misinformation before becoming President Donald Trump's top health official -- has worked to overhaul American vaccination policies. In June, he fired all 17 members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) and appointed his own panelists, under the banner of "Make America Healthy Again." Monday's complaint also highlighted the controversial new appointees to ACIP. "We are on a dangerous path," warned Susan Kressly of the AAP, denouncing what she described as misinformation spread by Kennedy while citing the concerns of her peers and parents of patients. "Pediatricians cannot stay silent as the system we rely on to support life-saving vaccines is chiseled away piece by piece, with Secretary Kennedy leading efforts to sow doubt and distrust in the American success story of vaccines," Kressly said. The problem isn't limited to parents and children, as misinformation about vaccines undermines a long-standing trust between doctor and patient. Increasingly, medical professionals are finding that adult patients are "hesitant to get their vaccines. They are not trusting the system anymore," said Jason Goldman, president of the ACP. The issue of vaccines extends beyond Covid-19 in the US. Johns Hopkins University released a count Monday finding the US has recorded its worst measles epidemic in more than 30 years, with 1,277 cases confirmed since the beginning of 2025, and illness recorded in 40 of 50 states. The total US figure is the highest since 1992. The joint complaint was filed in Massachusetts, a northeastern US state. Federal health officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment from AFP.
