Death risk lower for adults with obesity who feel less isolated and lonely
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Key takeaways:
- All-cause mortality risk for adults with obesity drops with lower levels of social isolation and loneliness.
- Adults with obesity and low social isolation have a similar mortality risk as those without obesity.
Adults with obesity who report less social isolation and loneliness have a lower risk for all-cause mortality, according to findings published in JAMA Network Open.
“Our study highlights the importance of taking social and mental health into account in improving health for people with obesity,” Lu Qi, MD, PhD, HCA Regents Distinguished Chair and professor at the Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, director of the Tulane University Obesity Research Center and director of the Tulane Personalized Health Institute, told Healio.
Qi and colleagues obtained data from 93,357 adults aged 40 to 70 years with obesity and 305,615 adults without obesity who enrolled in the UK Biobank from 2006 to 2010 (mean age, 55.85 years; 55.26% women). Researchers matched 84,920 adults with obesity, 1:1, by age, sex and assessment center with one control participant without obesity. Self-reported questionnaires were used to assess social isolation and loneliness. Index scores for social isolation and loneliness ranged from 0 to 2. A higher index score indicated a greater level of social isolation and loneliness. All-cause, cancer and cardiovascular disease morality were assessed until the end of follow-up on Nov. 21, 2021.
Of adults with obesity, 48.92% had a social isolation index score of 0, 40.58% had a score of 1 and 10.5% had a score of 2. For loneliness, 63.56% of adults with obesity had an index score of 0, 28.52% had a score of 1 and 7.91% had an index score of 2. Social isolation and loneliness were more common in people with obesity than people without obesity.
During a median follow-up of 12.73 years, there were 22,872 deaths in the study group, including 11,442 deaths attributed to cancer, 4,372 CVD-related deaths and 7,058 deaths from other causes. In a multivariable-adjusted model, adults with obesity and social isolation index score of 1 (adjusted HR = 0.85; 95% CI, 0.79-0.91) or 0 (aHR = 0.74; 95% CI, 0.69-0.8) had a lower risk for all-cause mortality than adults with obesity and a social isolation index score of 2. Adults with obesity and a loneliness index score of 0 had a lower risk for all-cause mortality than those with a loneliness index score of 2 (aHR = 0.86; 95% CI, 0.79-0.94).
Compared with adults without obesity, the risk for all-cause mortality declined with improvements in social isolation and loneliness. Adults with obesity and a social isolation index score of 0 had a similar all-cause mortality risk as adults without obesity. The risk for all-cause mortality among adults with obesity and a loneliness index of 0 remained higher than adults without obesity (aHR = 1.12; 95% CI, 1.05-1.19).
“Clinical studies are needed to test the effects of improvement of social isolation and loneliness on health status in humans,” Qi said.
For more information:
Lu Qi, MD, PhD, can be reached at lqi1@tulane.edu.
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