A UK study, published in BMC Public Health, has found loneliness and social isolation may be associated with a higher risk of glaucoma.
The study recruited 373,330 participants without glaucoma from the UK Biobank – a large population-based cohort study of more than 500,000 participants aged between 40 and 69 years – between 2006 and 2010.
Self-reported questionnaires were used to define loneliness and social isolation, with incident glaucoma events identified by hospital inpatient admissions and self-reported data.
During a median 13.1 years of follow-up, the researchers recorded 6,489 cases of glaucoma after the study baseline, and participants with loneliness or social isolation had higher cumulative incidences of glaucoma.
The researchers factored in age at recruitment, sex, race, education, smoking status, moderate drinking, physical activity, healthy diet, body mass index (BMI), history of hypertension, history of hypercholesterolemia, and history of diabetes when calculating the relative risk of developing glaucoma.
Taking these factors into consideration, participants who experience loneliness and social isolation were 16% and 8% more likely to develop glaucoma, respectively, relative to the control group.
It has been suggested that loneliness and social isolation enhance stress reactivity, with increasing metabolic stress shown to contribute to the damage and dysfunction of the glaucomatous neurovascular unit
Meanwhile, morphological changes in the trabecular meshwork may lead to elevated IOP. Finally, loneliness and social isolation increase the levels of inflammation and oxidative stress by upregulating sympathetic activity which may accelerate retinal ganglion death.
“Our finding underscores the necessity of positive mental and social network intervention for individuals at high risk of glaucoma,” the study authors said.
“Further research is needed to clarify the effects of loneliness and social isolation on specific subtypes of glaucoma.”
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