Loneliness linked to Alzheimer's risk

By Brian Smith

Here's a recent article from CBC News, Tuesday, February 6, 2007:

People who are lonely may have a higher risk of developing Alzheimer's disease late in life compared with those who interact more socially, a new study suggests.

While social isolation has been linked to an increased risk of dementia, less is known about the effects of emotional isolation, that is, a feeling of loneliness rather than actually being alone...

"Humans are very social creatures," said study author Robert Wilson of Rush University Medical Center in Chicago. "We need healthy interactions with others to maintain our health.

"The results of our study suggest that people who are persistently lonely may be more vulnerable to the deleterious effects of age-related neuropathology."

Wilson and his colleagues studied the link between loneliness and dementia in 823 people with an average age of 81. Participants were tracked for up to 40 years.

In the February issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry, the team reported 76 people developed Alzheimer's during the study.
When the study began, the participants' overall average loneliness score was 2.3 from a scale of one (lowest) to five.

The risk of developing Alzheimer's increased about 51 per cent with each point of increase on the loneliness score such as those who reported "I feel like I don't have enough friends."

The results suggest that someone who scored 3.2 would be about 2.1 times more likely to develop Alzheimer's compared with someone with a score of 1.4, the researchers said.

Autopsies were done on 90 participants who died during the study. Loneliness during life was not linked to brain changes such as the presence of tangles that are associated with Alzheimer's, the team found.

How loneliness may be linked to Alzheimer's remains unclear.

Keeping emotionally connected to others may help protect the brain from the early onset of dementia or loneliness may be an early symptom.