Loneliness and Risk of Parkinson Disease

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Abstract
In May 2023, the surgeon general of the US released a report on loneliness, morbidity, and mortality1 that followed similar recommendations from the World Health Organization and the US National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.2,3 Loneliness, defined as a distressing subjective feeling that arises from the discrepancy between one’s desired and perceived social relationships, is characterized by heightened emotional vulnerability, hypervigilance, and perseverative cognition.2,4 In addition to its emotional toll, individuals who feel lonely tend to engage in unhealthy lifestyles and have worse clinical profiles.1-3,5 In part through emotional (eg, depression), behavioral (eg, physical inactivity), and biomedical (eg, diabetes) stressors, loneliness can harm brain health and is associated with increased risk of psychiatric and neurodegenerative diseases.1-3,6 Indeed, loneliness has been associated with neurological conditions, such as Alzheimer disease and related dementias.7,8 However, to our knowledge, there is no longitudinal evidence on whether individuals who report loneliness are at greater risk of developing Parkinson disease (PD). A fast-growing condition and the second most common neurodegenerative disease, PD is complex and includes heterogeneous presentations of motor and nonmotor symptoms.9 This study examined the prospective association between loneliness and incident PD over a 15-year follow-up period in a population-based UK Biobank cohort. The study further tested whether the association between loneliness and PD was moderated by age, sex, or genetic risk and whether the association was accounted for by other risk factors, including sociodemographic factors; indicators of behavioral (eg, physical activity), mental (eg, depression), physical (eg, diabetes), and social (eg, social isolation) health; or genetic risk.

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