Social isolation, loneliness drive CVD risk among older women

February 02, 2022 2 min read Source / Disclosures Published by: Disclosures: Bellettiere reports receiving personal fees from Meta. Golaszewski reports no relevant financial disclosures. ADD TOPIC TO EMAIL ALERTS Receive an email when new articles are posted on Please provide your email address to receive an email when new articles are posted on .. "data-action " subscribe "> Subscribe We were unable to process your request. Please try again later. If you continue to have this issue please contact customerservice@slackinc.com.. Back to Healio Social isolation and loneliness are independently associated with an 11% to 16% higher risk for CVD among older women, according to research published in JAMA Network Open. Natalie M. Golaszewski “Social isolation and loneliness, while related to one another, are distinct social factors and our study showed that both factors are associated with increased risk for cardiovascular disease among older women,” Natalie M. GolaszewskiPhD, a postdoctoral fellow with the Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and Human Longevity Science, University of California, San Diego, told Healio. “The overall CVD risk was highest for women who had high social isolation and high loneliness.” Source: Adobe Stock In a prospective study, Golaszewski and colleagues analyzed data from 57,825 older women participating in the Women's Health Initiative II study with no history of CVD at baseline (mean age, 79 years; 89.1% white). Participants completed questionnaires assessing social isolation and loneliness. The main outcome was major CVD, defined as CHDstroke and CV death. During 186,762 person-years, researchers observed 1,599 major CVD events. Compared with women reporting low social isolation scores, women with high social isolation scores were 18% more likely to experience a major CVD event (HR 1.18; 95% CI, 1.13-1.23). Similarly, women with a high loneliness score were 14 % more likely to experience a major CVD event vs. those with low loneliness scores (HR 1.14; 95% CI, 1.1-1.18). 1.08 for women with a high vs. low social isolation score (95% CI, 1.03-1.12) and an HR of 1.05 for women with a high vs. low loneliness score (95% CI, 1.01-1.09). Women with both high social isolation and high loneliness scores had a 13% to 27% higher risk for incident CVD compared with women with low social isolation and low loneliness scores. Social support was not a significant effect modifier of the associations. “Both social isolation and loneliness are social factors that are important in the lives of patients and should be incorporated in clinical conversations and systematically measured in doctors' offices,” Golaszewski told Healio. effects of social isolation and loneliness on cardiovascular health and overall well-being. ” John Bellettiere Causal information is also needed to confirm conclusions from the study that reducing social isolation and loneliness can reduce CVD, according to John BellettierePhD, assistant professor of epidemiology at the Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and Human Longevity Science, University of California, San Diego. “This could take the form of randomized clinical trials or causal evaluations of existing programs designed to reduce social isolation and loneliness such as programs in the UK, ”Bellettiere told Healio. For more information: John BellettierePhD, can be reached at jbellettiere@health.ucsd.eduTwitter: @johnbellettiere. Natalie M. GolaszewskiPhD, can be reached at ngolaszewski@health.ucsd.eduTwitter: @natgolasz. ADD TOPIC TO EMAIL ALERTS Receive an email when new articles are posted on Please provide your email address to receive an email when new articles are posted on .. "data-action " subscribe "> Subscribe We were unable to process your request. Please try again later. If you continue to have this issue please contact customerservice@slackinc.com.. Back to Healio Sources 1/ https://Google.com/ 2/ https://www.healio.com/news/cardiology/20220202/social-isolation-loneliness-drive-cvd-risk-among-older-women The mention sources can contact us to remove/changing this article