This week as part of our Live Better – Live Longer series Dr. Eddie Murphy will be taking a look at the condition that is as dangerous to our health as obesity and smoking 15 cigarettes a day: Loneliness.

Dr Robert Waldinger, the Director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development, presides over what is the longest running study of human happiness. Dr Waldinger will be explaining how his study has shown how loneliness not only affects our health but also our life expectancy.

We will also meet Don Smith who – having lost his wife of 43 years – found himself lost and cut adrift by loneliness until he reached out to the charity ALONE and had his life changed by the visits of a remarkable young Dutch woman named Dana.

Dr Eddie wants us to look at loneliness as something which we all have to take seriously, but something which everyone can play their part in combating.

For more information on the Alone Befriending Service, please log on to the Alone website.