Chronic loneliness significantly increases the risk of stroke in elderly individuals. According to a study conducted by Harvard University, this risk is heightened by 56% for those who persistently experience loneliness. This research highlights major implications for public health.
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In 2022, the Fondation de France reported that nearly 11 million French people were suffering from chronic loneliness. Though subjective, this feeling has significant psychological and physical effects. Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the WHO, recently emphasized that social isolation and loneliness have serious consequences on overall health. Additionally, Dr. Vivek Murthy, U.S. Surgeon General, compares the effects of loneliness to those of smoking, highlighting its harmful impact on health.
Previous research from the University of California had already established a link between loneliness and cardiovascular diseases. However, few studies had specifically examined its impact on strokes. Dr. Yenee Soh from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health conducted a new study to explore this link. Published in
eClinicalMedicine, this study is the first to analyze the progression of loneliness and its long-term effect on stroke risk.
For this research, data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) were analyzed from 2006 to 2018. A total of 12,161 individuals aged 50 and older, who had never had a stroke, answered questions about their loneliness. Four years later, 8,936 of them responded to the same questions again. Participants were categorized into four groups based on their feelings of loneliness: consistently low, remission, recent onset, and consistently high.
During the follow-up period, 1,237 strokes were recorded among participants who answered the initial questions, and 601 strokes were recorded among those who answered twice. Data analysis showed that individuals who felt lonely had a 25% higher risk of stroke than those who did not feel lonely. The consistently high group had an increased risk of 56%.
According to Yenee Soh, repeated evaluations of loneliness can help identify individuals at risk for stroke. He underscores the importance of intervening at various levels to address the feeling of loneliness, which differs from social isolation.
Researchers are calling for additional studies to better understand the mechanisms by which loneliness influences health. The results of this study focus on middle-aged and older adults and cannot be generalized to younger individuals.
Author of the article: Cédric DEPOND