Feb. 2 (UPI) —<\/span> Post-menopausal women who are lonely or feel socially isolated are at higher risk for heart disease, a study published Wednesday by JAMA Network Open found.<\/p>\n Among nearly 60,000 women ages 65 to 99 years, those who reported feeling socially isolated were up to 18% more likely to develop heart disease than women who did not, the data showed.\n<\/p>\n<\/article>\n Those who reported high levels of loneliness had an up to 14% higher risk for heart disease than women who did not, the researchers said.<\/p>\n Women in the study who reported high levels of both loneliness and social isolation were up to 27% more likely to suffer from heart disease, according to the researchers.\n<\/p>\n “Social isolation and loneliness, while related to one another, are each a unique social factor, and each had a unique link with increased risk for cardiovascular disease,” study co-author John Bellettiere told UPI in an email.<\/p>\n “The overall [heart disease] risk was highest for people who had both high social isolation and high loneliness but having high levels of either factor was associated with higher risk,” said Bellettiere, an assistant professor of epidemiology at the University of California, San Diego.\n<\/p>\n Social isolation is a state in which people experience a complete lack of contact with society, whereas loneliness is a temporary and involuntary lack of contact with others, according to the National Institute on Aging.\n<\/p>\n Up to 25% of adults age 65 years and older experience social isolation, loneliness or both, according to recent estimates.<\/p>\n Earlier research has suggested that persistent loneliness increases a person’s risk for dementia as they age, while social isolation can lead to several health problems, including a higher likelihood of getting diagnosed with COVID-19.<\/p>\n Among the 57,825 women included in this study, up to 40% of whom reported high levels of loneliness or social isolation, there were 1,599 heart-disease related health events, such as a stroke or heart attack, the researchers said.\n<\/p>\n The women were part of the Women’s Health Initiative, a long-term study focused on the prevention of heart disease, cancer, and osteoporosis in postmenopausal women.<\/p>\n More than 60% of women who reported high levels of loneliness and social isolation took medications to treat high blood pressure, while about 45% were prescribed drugs for elevated cholesterol, the data showed.<\/p>\n Both high blood pressure and high cholesterol are risk factors for heart disease, according to the American Heart Association.\n<\/p>\n “There is a lot we don’t know about the underlying biological mechanisms between loneliness and increased risk of heart disease,” study co-author Natalie M. Golaszewski told UPI in an email.<\/p>\n “Over time, the feelings of loneliness may enhance inflammation and oxidative stress, which then may increase the risk of heart disease,” said Golaszewski, a behavioral research scientist at the University of California, San Diego.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Women who are lonely and socially isolated are at higher risk for heart disease, according to a new study. Photo by Julim6\/Pixabay Feb. 2 (UPI) — Post-menopausal women who are lonely or feel socially isolated are at higher risk for heart disease, a study published Wednesday by JAMA Network Open found. Among nearly 60,000 women […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":973838,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[1363,48,1439,4010,2525,423,425,1944,28,427],"class_list":["post-973837","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-disease","tag-heart","tag-isolation","tag-loneliness","tag-postmenopausal","tag-raise","tag-risk","tag-social","tag-study","tag-women"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/973837","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=973837"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/973837\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=973837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=973837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=973837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Study:](\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/Study-Loneliness-social-isolation-raise-heart-disease-risk-in-post-menopausal-women.jpg\" "\\"Study:")
\n<\/div>\nWomen who are lonely and socially isolated are at higher risk for heart disease, according to a new study. Photo by Julim6\/Pixabay<\/p>\n