(Boston) – Being regularly isolated through life (age 45-64) is likely to make me more likely to develop dementia and Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) later in life. However, people who overcome loneliness are less likely to suffer from depression, compared to people who have never felt lonely.
Loneliness is a thematic feeling caused by a subjective distinction between desired and real social relationships. While loneliness alone is not a clinical disease status, it is associated with a range of negative health outcomes, including sleep disturbances, depressive symptoms, brain loss, and stroke. However, feeling lonely can happen to anyone at some point in their lives, especially in very fast and unresolved situations like the Covid-19 locks. However, people differ in how long – or how “persistent” – they feel lonely. Thus, people who survive loneliness may experience different long-term effects on their health than those who have been lonely for several years.
In an attempt to shed light on the link between these different types of loneliness (intractable and persistent loneliness) and the AD event, researchers from Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) studied data that included normal adult adults from the Framingham Heart Study. In particular, they examined whether persistent loneliness predicted the future development of dementia and AD than intractable loneliness. They also wanted to see if this relationship was independent of depression and established genetic risk factors for AD, such as the Apolipoprotein ε4 allele (APOE ε4).
After noting the effects of age, gender, education, social network, living alone, physical health and genetic risk, persistent loneliness was associated with a higher risk, whereas persistent loneliness was associated with a lower risk of dementia and AD begin after 18 years, compared to loneliness.
“While chronic loneliness is a threat to brain health, psychological suffering after poor life experiences may explain why immobile loneliness is immune in the context of depression,” the co-author explained. -responsible Wendy Qiu, MD, PhD, professor of psychiatry and medicine & therapeutic medicine. at BUSM. Despite the current pandemics, these decisions raise hopes for people who may be experiencing loneliness now, but who may be able to overcome it. this feeling over time, such as by the use of successful treatments or following a policy change in the body speed rules.
According to the researchers, these findings encourage further study of the factors that make individuals resilient to adverse life events and persuade them to make interventions appropriate for the right person at the right time to prevent the persistence of loneliness, promote brain health and prevent AD.
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Samia Akhter-Khan and Qiushan Tao are co-authors of this study, which appears online in Alzheimer & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer’s Society.
This work was supported by a contract from the National Institute of Heart, Lung and Blood (N01-HC-25195) and with grants from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, NS-17950 and the National Institute on Aging AG -022476 (RA); AG-09899 (WQ) and K24AG050842 (WQ). The supporting institutions were not involved in the design and conduct of the study; collection, management, analysis, and interpretation of the data; prepare, review, or approve the manuscript; and the decision to submit the manuscript for publication.
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