At what age does loneliness strike adults the hardest? A new review maps it out, finding that people are more lonely as young adults, grow less lonely as they approach middle age, and then fall back into loneliness in old age, researchers reported April 30 in the journal Psychological Science. “What was striking was how consistent the uptick in loneliness is in older adulthood,” said researcher Eileen Graham, an associate professor of medical social sciences at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago. “There’s a wealth of evidence that loneliness is related to poorer health, so we wanted to better understand who is lonely and why people are becoming lonelier as they age out of midlife, so we can hopefully start finding ways to mitigate it,” Graham said. Social isolation can increase the risk of premature death to levels comparable to daily smoking, according to the U.S. Surgeon General. For the review, researchers evaluated data from nine long-term studies conducted around the world. All of the studies showed a U-shaped loneliness curve, even though they tested different groups of people from the United States, the U.K., Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands, Australia and Israel, researchers said.   “Our study is unique because it harnessed the power of all these datasets to answer the same question — ‘How does loneliness change across the lifespan, and what factors…  read on >  read on >

Current and former smokers might lower their risk for emphysema if they adopt a highly nutritional plant-based diet, a new study shows. People with a history of smoking who adopted a plant-based diet had a 56% lower risk of developing emphysema, compared to those who ate more meat, researchers report. Further, the more veggies and fruits people included in their diet, the lower their risk of emphysema. “Identifying these modifiable factors, such as diet, is vital for helping reduce the risk of developing chronic lung disease in those with a history of smoking,” said lead researcher Mariah Jackson, a registered dietitian nutritionist and assistant professor with the University of Nebraska Medical Center. These findings jibe with earlier studies that “show an association between an individual’s dietary choices and lung health, including reducing wheezing in children and lowering asthma occurrence in children and adults,” Jackson added. For the study, researchers followed more than 1,700 participants in a long-term heart health study, all of whom were recruited between the ages of 18 and 30 and followed for three decades. They all were current or former smokers by year 20 of the study, and had filled out questionnaires tracking their diet history and quality. More than 1,300 of those participants had a CT scan at year 25 of the study to see whether they’d developed emphysema, among other…  read on >  read on >

Cancer survivors in the throes of loneliness are more likely to die compared to those with companionship, a new study finds. Further, people who are the most lonely are the most likely to die, results show. “Loneliness, the feeling of being isolated, is a prevalent concern among cancer survivors,” said lead researcher Jingxuan Zhao, a senior associate scientist in health services research at the American Cancer Society. Cancer diagnosis and treatment tends to isolate people as they engage in a personal struggle with the dreaded disease, straining their social relationships, Zhao explained. “There are more than 18 million cancer survivors in the U.S. and that number is expected to increase to 22 million by 2030,” Zhao said. “We need to address this critical issue now.” For the study, researchers tracked more than 3,400 cancer survivors aged 50 and older who responded to a federally funded study on retirement and health between 2008 and 2018. About 28% of the survivors reported severe loneliness, and another 24% reported moderate loneliness. Those reporting the highest level of loneliness were 67% more likely to die than the least lonely, researchers found. The new study was published April 25 in the Journal of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network. “What’s needed is the implementation of programs to screen for loneliness among cancer survivors and to provide social support to those in…  read on >  read on >

The emotional turmoil caused by a stolen dog is akin to that of a parent losing a child, a new study finds. The findings support the idea that pets truly become family members to their owners, researchers said. When faced with the theft of a pet, owners tend to feel a similar sense of powerlessness, grief and loss. In fact, some study participants felt the loss of a dog was more intense than the death of a friend or relative, owing to the closeness of the bond they had with their pet but not with some family members. “It provides evidence of the intense love of dogs and the parental accountability of guardians,” said lead researcher Akaanksha Venkatramanan, an assistant psychologist with the Berkshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust in the U.K. For the study, published April 25 in the journal Animal-Human Interactions, researchers conducted interviews with four people who’d had their dogs stolen. The people were recruited through social media. “This research was launched when my friends’ dog, Lola, was stolen from under her nose in her back garden by someone we presume was posing as a delivery driver,” researcher Lindsey Roberts, a senior lecturer at the University of the West of England, said in a journal news release. “The distress rocked everyone, and I felt more had to be done to support those who…  read on >  read on >

Most ex-cons are unlikely to receive substance use treatment following their release from prison, even though odds are high they are struggling with addiction, a new study finds. National estimates suggest as many as 85% of inmates leave prison with some form of substance abuse problem, researchers said. But only 17% of ex-cons on Medicaid in Virginia have been diagnosed with substance use disorders, and even fewer have been prescribed addiction-fighting medication, investigators found. “This research shows that many people aren’t getting the medical attention they need as they transition back to their communities,” said lead researcher Peter Cunningham, interim chair of the Virginia Commonwealth University Department of Health Policy. For the study, researchers used data from Virginia’s health and corrections departments to track the number of people diagnosed and treated for addiction following their release from prison. More than 4,600 adults were released from county jails and state prisons in 2022, and 85% enrolled in Medicaid within one month of release, the study found. “The good news is that we see a high number of individuals enrolling in Medicaid soon after they are released from prison, and that is in large part due to the state expanding Medicaid coverage in 2019,” Cunningham said in a university news release. However, only 17% had seen a doctor and been diagnosed with a substance use disorder within…  read on >  read on >

Anne Helms is one busy mom, constantly juggling the demands of working from home with parenting two young children. Despite that whirl of activity, Helms says she often feels isolated and lonely. “I work from home full time and I actually have a job where I’m on camera a lot and I’m Zoom calling people very often,” Helms, who lives in Columbus, Ohio, said in a news release. “However, you don’t get the small talk, so you don’t get the, ‘How are your children? How’s it going?’ And you don’t get a lot of genuine answers when you do ask, ‘How is it going?’” Helms added. “There are some days where the most chit-chat or idle talk that I get is with my dog because I work alone,” she said. Helms isn’t the only parent to struggle with busy loneliness, according to a new national survey from Ohio State University’s Wexner Medical Center. A broad majority of parents experience isolation, loneliness and burnout as a result of the demands of parenthood, the survey reveals: About two-thirds of parents (66%) said the demands of parenthood sometimes or frequently feel isolating and lonely Nearly as many, 62%, feel burned out by their responsibilities as a parent Nearly two in five (38%) feel they have no one to support them in their parenting About four in five (79%)…  read on >  read on >

“Dream it, be it” might sound like a cliche, but a new study says there’s something to the notion. Teenagers who set ambitious goals for themselves tend to be more successful as young adults, researchers reported recently in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Teens who set higher educational and career goals “tended to have higher educational attainment, income, occupational creativity, occupational prestige and job complexity after 12 years,” said researcher Rodica Damian, an associate professor of psychology with the University of Houston. That doesn’t mean that a person’s goals won’t change, researchers said. Some dreams fall away, while other goals remain strong and new ones come to the fore. But setting early goals related to education and accomplishment appeared to consistently predict better income, and tweaks in these goals tended to predict having a challenging, higher-prestige career, results show. For the study, researchers tracked two national groups of Icelandic youth across 12 years, from their late teenage years into young adulthood. Researchers examined how life goals developed with age, and how the goals set by teenagers related to their accomplishments in education and career. “For educational attainment, the strongest effects were found for education goals. Both initial levels and slopes of education goals were positively associated with educational attainment in both samples,” Damian said. “This indicates that adolescents with higher education goals, and…  read on >  read on >