A new study has found that lonely people are twice as likely to die from heart problems. The study, presented on Saturday at the European Society of Cardiology’s annual nursing conference in Dublin, Ireland, suggests loneliness is linked not only to premature death, but also to lower quality life overall.
“Loneliness is more common today than ever before, and more people live alone,” said study author Anne Vinggaard Christensen, a PhD student at Copenhagen University Hospital in Denmark. “Previous research has shown that loneliness and social isolation are linked with coronary heart disease and stroke, but this has not been investigated in patients with different types of cardiovascular disease.”
The study included data from nearly 13,500 patients with different heart conditions, including ischaemic heart disease, abnormal heart rhythm (known as arrhythmia), heart failure or heart valve disease. Researchers then evaluated the quality of patients’ social networks using data from national registers regarding whether or not patients lived alone, in addition to responses to survey questions. The survey asked patients to answer questions about their physical and mental health, lifestyle and perceived social support.
The data showed that loneliness was associated with poor health outcomes in all patients, regardless of which type of cardiovascular disease they suffered from. This held true even after adjusting for other factors, such as age, body mass index, education, other diseases, smoking and alcohol consumption.
The team also found that both men and women who felt lonely had a lower quality of life than those who did not and were three times as likely to experience symptoms of anxiety and depression.
“Loneliness is a strong predictor of premature death, worse mental health, and lower quality of life in patients with cardiovascular disease, and a much stronger predictor than living alone, in both men and women,” said Vinggaard Christensen.
“We live in a time when loneliness is more present and health providers should take this into account when assessing risk. Our study shows that asking two questions about social support provides a lot of information about the likelihood of having poor health outcomes.”
The two questions researchers asked patients were: “Do you have someone to talk to when you need it?” and “Do you feel alone sometimes even though you want to be with someone?”
Vinggaard Christensen said that it was essential to collect data about patients’ living arrangements and perceived levels of social support since certain “people may live alone but not feel lonely, while others cohabit but do feel lonely.”
Cardiovascular disease causes more than half of all deaths in Europe, according to the World Health Organisation. There are more than 11 million new cases of cardiovascular disease in Europe each year, 6 million of which occur in the European Union. Nearly 49 million people in the EU are living with cardiovascular disease, which the European Society of Cardiology says costs EU economies as much as €210 billion per year.