According to new research by Kimia Shafighi and colleagues at McGill University in Canada, published in the open access journal PLOS ONE, determinants of social lifestyles, including social isolation, are: Risk factors for neurodegeneration.
Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias (ADRD) is a growing public health crisis with an annual global cost of over $1 trillion.Although there is growing evidence that social isolation is associated with increased risk of ADRD, social lifestyles and other known ADRD risk factors is not well understood.
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In the new study, researchers studied data from 502,506 UK Biobank participants and 30,097 Canadian Longitudinal Studies on Aging enrolled in the study. Both studies had questionnaires containing questions about loneliness, frequency of loneliness. Social interaction and social support.
This study found numerous associations between potentially modifiable ADRD risk factors and both loneliness and lack of social support. An individual who smoked heavily, drank excessive alcohol, experienced sleep disturbances, and frequently failed to participate in mild to vigorous physical activity (all known risk factors for his ADRD) was more likely to be lonely. , more likely to lack social support. For example, CLSA found that more regular physical activity with others was associated with a 20.1% lower probability of feeling lonely and a 26.9% lower probability of having insufficient social support.
Physical and mental health factors previously associated with ADRD, including cardiovascular disease, visual or hearing impairment, diabetes, neurotic and depressive behaviors, are also associated with both subjective and objective social isolation. was related. For example, in UKBB, hearing difficulties due to ambient noise increased the likelihood of feeling lonely by 29.0% and the likelihood of lacking social support by 9.86%. As a function of participants’ neurotic scores, they were also 3.7 and 1.4 times more likely to feel lonely and lack social support, respectively.
The authors conclude that social isolation, which is more easily modifiable than genetic or latent health risk factors, may be a promising target for preventive clinical behavior and policy intervention.
The authors conclude, “Given the uncertainty of the impact of social distancing measures imposed by COVID-19, our findings suggest that social isolation multiple It emphasizes the importance of investigating scale effects.
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