Studies are now looking into the link between the feeling of loneliness and heart failure. According to experts, people who are suffering from heart failure and feel "socially isolated" are more likely to be hospitalized or die early than those who feel connected to other people.
Loneliness Kills
The study was funded by the U.S. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute and by the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute. It was published in the Journal of American Heart Association. The researchers of the study claim that screening heart failure patients who do not have social support could help improve outcomes. The investigators of the study asked 1,700 heart failure patients from Southeastern Minnesota if they were lonely or if they felt isolated.
The participants were all roughly around the age of 73 and majority of them where white males. About 6 percent of the patients claim to feel lonely. Compared to the ones who claimed that they felt connected socially to others, the ones that did not have a 3.7 risk of having an early death, 1.7 risks of hospitalization, and 1.6 risks of visiting the hospital.
Lila Rutten, a professor of health services at the Mayo Clinic, stated that the study found that people's sense of loneliness or isolation can attribute to a prognosis in poor heart failure. She continued that health care providers can help aid patients who have heart failure by executing a reliable brief screening tool to help identify people who are suffering from social isolation.
Dr. Clyde Yancy, spokesperson and Chief of the Cardiology Division at the Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine, stated that people who take care of their disease usually have a partner next to them.
"A team is important in regards to maintaining hope and preventing medical errors at home, and those with a team seemingly do better," Yancy told ABC News.
Ways To Cope With Loneliness
At the beginning of May, Cigna reported that loneliness has become a widespread epidemic in the United States. Using the UCLA Loneliness Scale, the health insurance provider surveyed 20,000 people, which showed at least 40 percent of the participants felt that their relationships with others weren't meaningful.
Several therapists suggested ways to help people cope with feeling lonely or out of tune with others. Experts suggest that embracing people for who they are, reconnecting with families, identifying why a person feels lonely, and practicing small talk with others were ways to help combat loneliness among people.
