Longitudinal Association between Loneliness and Metabolic Syndrome

Undergraduate Honors Thesis

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Citeable URL: https://scholar.colorado.edu/concern/undergraduate_honors_theses/v405sb51b

Abstract

Loneliness is associated with a variety of mental and physical health outcomes leading to a multitude of studies being conducted in the past to identify the pathway by which loneliness leads to poorer physical health. The current study was conducted using a large probability sample of English adults to investigate the longitudinal association between loneliness and metabolic syndrome, which refers to a group of conditions that can lead to diabetes, stroke, and other health conditions. Several studies have found significant cross-sectional associations between loneliness and metabolic syndrome, and the current study builds on prior research by examining the degree to which loneliness predicts the 4-year incidence of metabolic syndrome and the individual components of metabolic syndrome – central obesity, raised triglycerides, reduced HDL cholesterol, raised blood pressure, or raised fasting plasma glucose – using data from Wave 2 and Wave 4 of the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (N = 1,094). Results from logistic regression analyses indicated that loneliness was not significantly associated with incidence of metabolic syndrome or any of its individual components. Furthermore, the longitudinal association between loneliness and metabolic syndrome or its components was not moderated by gender or age.

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