Loneliness increases the risk of coronary heart disease and stroke by 30%

Meta-analysis confirmed the connection of loneliness with the risk of heart attack and stroke

Oleg Lischuk, N+1

Scientists from the UK conducted a meta-analysis of available studies and concluded that loneliness and social isolation increase the risk of coronary heart disease (including heart attack) and stroke by a third. The results of the work are published in the journal Heart (Valtorta et al., Loneliness and social isolation as risk factors for coronary heart disease and stroke: systematic review and meta-analysis of longitudinal observational studies).

Employees of the Department of Public Health, York and Newcastle Universities, using electronic databases, conducted a search for high-quality longitudinal studies conducted in developed countries and published before May 2015. The inclusion criteria were met by 23 publications in 16 cohorts with a total number of participants of more than 181 thousand people. The data for analysis was combined using a model with random effects.

The studies included in the meta-analysis contained information on 4,628 cases of angina and infarction and 3002 cases of stroke registered during the follow-up period from three years to 21 years. The number of participants who reported loneliness or social deprivation ranged from 2.8 to 77.2 percent in different works.

Statistical analysis of the data showed that a low level of social relations is associated with an increase in the average relative risk of coronary heart disease attacks by 29 percent (combined relative risk of 1.29; 95 percent confidence interval from 1.04 to 1.59) and stroke - by 32 percent (combined relative risk of 1.32; 95 percent confidence interval from 1.04 to 1.68). At the same time, the increase in risk did not depend on the gender of the participants.

According to the researchers, loneliness and social isolation turned out to be no less significant risk factors than anxiety, excessive workload at work and other well-known psychosocial stressors. Additional research is needed to clarify the role of socialization in the prevention of coronary heart disease and stroke.

Cardiovascular diseases, including heart attack and stroke, are the leading cause of death in the world. In 2013, they caused 31.5 percent of all deaths. At the same time, it is estimated that 90 percent of cases of cardiovascular diseases can be prevented.

Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru  28.04.2016