Childhood loneliness increases the risk of dementia in old age. According to a study conducted in this regard, children who have experienced loneliness in childhood have a 40% increased risk of developing dementia in old age.
A research team from Capital Medical University in Beijing, China, has published the results of a long-term research study, which examined the relationship between loneliness experienced before the age of 17 and the risk of dementia and mental decline in old age. This research report was published in the international academic journal JAMA Network Open.
The research team explained that while it is well known that loneliness in adults is closely linked to mental decline and an increased risk of dementia, the long-term effects of childhood experiences have not been fully explored and explored.
For this study, researchers selected 13,592 people with an average age of 58.3 years and followed them for one year. The researchers included 565 participants in the loneliness group who reported that they often felt lonely before the age of 17 and had no close friends.
6,525 people, who were 48 percent of the total group, were classified as potentially lonely. While the third group included people who had never felt lonely.
The results of the study showed that the lonely group had a 41 percent higher risk of dementia in middle or late life than those who had never felt lonely. While mental decline in the lonely and potentially lonely groups increased by 0.02 to 0.03 percent per year, which was significantly higher than in the group that did not feel lonely.
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