Unwanted loneliness has many consequences for people’s lives. Numerous studies have shown that lack of companionship is detrimental to health and, in some cases, increases the risk of developing diseases that increase the risk of death by about 30%. Current research results published in the journal Jama Neurology show another connection with a degenerative disease for which there is still no cure: Parkinson’s.
“Loneliness is a stressful feeling. “We think it can cause physiological stress in the brain over time, especially in people with other vulnerabilities,” explains Antonio Terracciano, a geriatrician at Florida State University and coordinator of the study. “So far, the effects of loneliness on other aspects of life, such as obesity or cardiovascular disease, have been analyzed. “But so far, no work has examined the connection with Parkinson’s,” adds the expert, who and his team have observed a total of 491,603 participants in a biobank in the United Kingdom for 15 years, who had to answer the same question at the beginning of the study: “Feel Are you often alone?”
All participants were over 50 years old at the start of the research, as Parkinson’s disease is more common in adults. In order to better identify the temporal relationship between loneliness and Parkinson’s disease, the analyzes were repeated every five years. The final results show that people who answered “yes” have a 37% higher risk of developing Parkinson’s disease. “This association remains even when other demographic factors such as socioeconomic level, unhealthy lifestyle habits or genetic predisposition to other diseases are taken into account,” says Terracciano, although he acknowledges that some variables may moderate the result.
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In fact, there are two factors that reduce this likelihood and that researchers identify as possible clues to understand the causes of the correlation. The study shows that loneliness is more likely to be associated with a higher risk of Parkinson’s disease through metabolic, inflammatory and neuroendocrine pathways, as the correlation decreases by 13% when chronic diseases such as diabetes are taken into account. However, the variable that most moderates the association between loneliness and Parkinson’s disease is mental health (24%). “There is evidence that there are bidirectional links between loneliness and depression, which tend to co-occur. “These results suggest that the same thing happens in Parkinson’s, although we can’t yet say with certainty which of the two things happens first,” admits the expert.
“A certainly interesting aspect of this study is the sex variable, which the researchers show does not exist when it comes to Parkinson’s,” says María José Martín, neurologist at the Networked Biomedical Research Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (CIBERNED). Although the majority of people who reported feeling lonely were women, had fewer economic resources, and were more likely to suffer from anxiety or depression, the study’s results do not show that women are more likely to develop Parkinson’s than men.
Uncertain origin
The Florida team’s findings add to other evidence that loneliness is a psychosocial health determinant associated with increased risk of morbidity and mortality. A recent study from the Nanchang Neuroscience Institute (China) warned that loneliness is associated with a 23 percent increase in the risk of dementia, while another research from the University of Florida that used the same measure of loneliness as this one study found that feeling Loneliness was associated with an increased risk of Alzheimer’s disease and vascular and frontotemporal dementia. “Current and previous evidence suggests that loneliness may be associated with an increased risk of neurodegenerative diseases and that the deleterious effects of loneliness are not limited to a single cause or neuropathological pathway,” explains Terracciano.
Despite the results, the study does not provide any conclusions about the causes of this relationship and is limited to pointing out different interpretations of the data. In addition to the endocrine possibility, researchers are investigating the possibility that people who experience loneliness tend to engage in health-damaging behaviors, such as a sedentary lifestyle. “It’s true that loneliness has been studied a lot after Covid-19. It certainly affects the aspects of immunity and inflammation. But I think we still can’t say for sure whether loneliness is a cause or a consequence of Parkinson’s disease. It could be that the pathology came first and that this feeling of loneliness was an earlier symptom,” admits Martín.
Nevertheless, Dr. Ana Martínez, from the Biological Research Center (CIB-CSIC), who did not participate in this study, carried out the analysis because she was the first to study this connection, which has already been found in other diseases. neurodegenerative. “Basically, this study says that a person’s emotional stage has an impact on preventing or delaying Parkinson’s disease. Although it doesn’t offer solid explanations as to why, one has to admit that it’s pretty good advice for the general population. “It won’t do any harm and will probably end up like Alzheimer’s, where a positive attitude has been proven to help prevent it,” says the expert.
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