Alzheimer Dementia-Are you lonely: People in middle age are more prone to dementia if they are alone for a long time

Loneliness is a subjective feeling caused by the perceived difference between expected and actual social relationships.
Although loneliness itself does not have the status of a clinical disease, it is related to a series of negative health outcomes, including stress, sleep disorders, depressive symptoms, cognitive impairment, coronary heart disease, stroke, and death.
It is worth noting that the trajectory of loneliness may be affected by people's backgrounds, such as their living arrangements, need for social support, and physical and mental health.

In addition, individual differences in the way a person copes with loneliness may correspond to the more general way a person copes with life stressful events.
However, the relationship between loneliness and dementia remains unclear.
In some studies, loneliness is associated with an increased risk of dementia, while other studies have not found this association.

One possibility for this difference is that previous studies only used a one-time assessment of loneliness.
However, personal life experience and ability to cope with adverse life events such as bereavement vary, which may affect the trajectory of loneliness among individuals.
A recent meta-analysis showed that a person’s experience of loneliness may change.
From middle age to old age, the differences between individuals are getting bigger and bigger, which is similar to the findings of other personality characteristics.
Given that the pathogenesis and progression of Alzheimer's disease (AD) may span decades, individual loneliness varies.

Samia C.
Akhter-Khan and others of the University of Berlin, Germany , explored the relationship between changes in personal loneliness in middle age and the risk of dementia and AD 18 years later.

The main hypothesis: the temporary nature of loneliness (ie, the short-lived form) and the persistence of loneliness (ie, the continuous form) will have different effects on the risk of AD in the elderly.

Mainly using data from the Framingham Heart Study (FHS) to explore:
(1) Whether persistent loneliness predicts the future development of dementia and AD more strongly than short-term loneliness; (2) Whether loneliness is independent Depression and established genetic risk factors for AD (such as APOE ε4) predict AD.

The relationship between persistent loneliness and Alzheimer's disease (AD) is unclear.
We studied the relationship between different types of middle-aged loneliness and the development of dementia and AD.

Loneliness: It is defined as no loneliness, short-term loneliness, accidental loneliness, or continuous loneliness.

Cox regression model and Kaplan-Meier plot were used to treat dementia and AD as clinical outcomes (n = 2880).

After adjusting for demographics, social network, physical health, and lipoprotein E ε4, compared with no loneliness, persistent loneliness is associated with a higher risk of dementia (HR=1.
91; P <.
01), and Short-term loneliness is associated with a lower risk of dementia (HR, 0.

The significance of this research lies in the discovery that persistent loneliness in middle age is an independent risk factor for dementia and AD, and recovery from loneliness indicates resistance to the risk of dementia.

Original source: onlinelibrary.
wiley.
com/doi/10.