Lonely People Are More Likely To Develop Alzheimer’s

This study showed that it might be a connection between Alzheimer’s and lonely people.

A recent study showed that lonely people are prone to have Alzheimer’s. This means that if a person feels lonely they might have a higher chance of developing this disease. To conduct this study, researchers had almost 80 volunteers. The scientists tested their levels of cortical amyloid from the brain.

The levels of cortical amyloid can predict whether or not a person can develop this condition. They discovered that people who had positive levels of cortical amyloids had higher chances of having this disease in the future. The ones that had positive levels were the lonely people.

In order to find out if their theory is true, specialists made a scale to measure the loneliness levels and they also measured the levels of cortical amyloid. After that, they compared the results to see if they are linked to one another. This study showed that there might be a connection between Alzheimer’s and lonely people. People who felt lonely were the ones that had the higher chances of having this disease that can also cause dementia in more than 70% of times.

This study was made for both women and men in order to see if there were any differences. It was proved that both men and women are affected by this condition. If they feel lonely they are more at risk because there is a link between depression and dementia as well.

Almost 50 million people have been diagnosed with this disease by 2015. This is a concerning number and the studies made on this topic show that even more people will be affected by this condition in the future. This is because more and more people are being stressed or depressed and they start to feel lonely because they are too busy with work.

All of these factors lead to Alzheimer’s and other mental health problems. Researchers mentioned that people, especially senior citizens, shouldn’t be left alone all the time. Their families should be there for them. This could lower the risk of developing this condition. Lonely people have a higher risk of developing some diseases because the human immune system is tied to our emotions. This is why we should take more care of each other.

What is your opinion about this study? Do you think that lonely people have a higher risk of developing mental health problems?

Image source: Flickr