Relation between Loneliness and High Blood Pressure in Older People

According to a new study, loneliness might have negative effect on blood pressure in elder people.

The study conducted at the University of Chicago, has established a direct link between loneliness and high blood pressure. The relation is independent of age and other factors that can cause blood pressure to increase, including body-mass index, smoking, alcohol use and demographic variations like race and income.

The researchers also probed the probability that depression and stress might be responsible for the increase, but found that those factors did not entirely clarify the rise in blood pressure among lonely people 50 years and older.

Researcher Louise Hawkley wrote in an article, "Loneliness Predicts Increased Blood Pressure", that loneliness worked as if it is a distinctive health-risk factor in its own right. It came out in the current issue of the journal, Psychology and Aging.

During the five-year study on 229 people aged 50 to 68, Hawkley found a lucid relation between feelings of loneliness and increasing blood pressure.

Hawkley said, "Loneliness is characterized by a motivational impulse to connect with others but also a fear of negative evaluation, rejection and disappointment. We hypothesize that threats to one's sense of safety and security with others are toxic components of loneliness, and that hypervigilance for social threat may contribute to alterations in physiological functioning, including elevated blood pressure".