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The Fondation de France revealed that nearly 11 million French people suffered from chronic loneliness in 2022. This feeling, difficult to describe in detail because it is relatively specific to each person, constitutes a heavy psychological ordeal for those who experience it. are faced, and the impacts would not only be psychological. Indeed, various studies have recently focused on its effects on physical health. And according to one of them, conducted at Harvard University, chronic loneliness can increase the risk of stroke in older people by 56%.
In November 2023, WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that high rates of social isolation and loneliness around the world have serious consequences for health and well-being. He pointed out that people without enough close social connections are at greater risk of problems that affect all aspects of health and well-being. For his part, Dr. Vivek Murthy, United States public health officer, says that the health effects of loneliness are equivalent to smoking 15 cigarettes a day. This means it is as harmful as smoking and is now one of the biggest health problems globally.
Previous work by researchers at the University of California has already linked loneliness to a high risk of developing cardiovascular disease. In contrast, little research has closely examined its impact on stroke risk specifically. This is what motivated Dr. Yenee Soh, associate researcher at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, and his team to carry out a new study in this direction. Moreover, this is the first of its kind to look at the association between the evolution of loneliness and the risk of stroke over time.
Towards a better understanding of the loneliness-stroke association
According to the study report, published in the journal
eClinicalMedecine, Soh writes that situational loneliness is not linked to a higher risk of stroke. According to him, the risk of stroke stems from chronic loneliness. “ Our study suggests that when experienced chronically, loneliness may play an important role in the incidence of stroke, which is already a leading cause of long-term disability and mortality worldwide. “, he said in a press release.
To reach this conclusion, Soh and his team examined data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) from 2006 to 2018. During this period, 12,161 people aged 50 and older applied volunteers to answer questions about loneliness. These participants, at the time, had never had a stroke. Four years later (2010-2012), 8936 participants (still included in the study) answered the same questions again.
Based on the scores they obtained at these two time points, the researchers then listed them into 4 groups: persistently low (those who scored low on the loneliness scale at baseline and follow-up); in remission (those who scored high at baseline and low at follow-up); recent onset (those who scored low at baseline and high at follow-up); and consistently high (those who scored high at both baseline and follow-up).
Among people who participated in the study at baseline, 1237 strokes occurred during the follow-up period (2006-2018). Among those who completed two assessments, 601 strokes occurred during the follow-up period (2010-2018). The researchers then analyzed each group’s stroke risk in the context of their experiences of loneliness, controlling for other health and behavioral risk factors, including social isolation and depressive symptoms. which are closely related to, but distinct from, loneliness.
The results showed that those considered lonely at the start of the study had a 25% higher risk of stroke than those not considered lonely. In contrast, among participants in the “consistently high” score group, the risk of stroke was 56% higher than those in the persistently low group (even after accounting for a wide range of known risk factors). .
« Repeated assessments of loneliness can help identify those who experience chronic loneliness and are at higher risk of stroke. If we fail to address their feelings of loneliness, on a micro and macro scale, the health consequences could be profound ” said Soh.
The researchers also mentioned that additional research needs to be done to understand the potential mechanisms underlying loneliness. Indeed, the results here are limited to middle- and older-aged adults and cannot be generalized to younger individuals.
