Lonely people are prone to dementia

Those who live alone will be able to develop Alzheimer's disease twice as often as they age in old age. The results came from research on 800 elderly patients lasting for 4 years in the United States.

Social isolation has been known to be related to dementia, but this is the first time researchers have figured out how lonely people really feel.

Professor Robert Wilson and colleagues at Rush University evaluated the loneliness of participants by asking them to rank from 1 to 5 on whether they agreed with some of her statements. application or not. Sayings include: " I always have a feeling of emptiness ", " I often feel abandoned " .

Participants were also tested for signs of dementia and Alzheimer's disease. The group found that the risk of Alzheimer's disease increased to 51%, corresponding to each increase in loneliness.

Those with the highest loneliness index (3.2) increased 2.1 times the risk of Alzheimer's disease compared with the lowest index of 1.4.

Professor Wilson argues that the results exclude the possibility that loneliness is the reaction of dementia. It may be lonely to affect systems in the brain related to cognition and memory, making lonely people more susceptible to the effects of age-related neurodegeneration.

" We need to realize that loneliness not only has a psychological impact, but it also affects the body ," Wilson said.

" The interesting thing about this study is that each person's loneliness, not the degree of social isolation, is closely related to the risk of Alzheimer's, " said Dr. Susan Sorensen, at Alzheimer's , identify.

MT