ArticleAlzheimer's & dementia (Amsterdam, Netherlands)
Loneliness trajectories and dementia risk: Insights from the HUNT cohort study.
Article in Alzheimer's & dementia (Amsterdam, Netherlands). The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to trial NCT04786561 (Depression as Risk Factor for Dementia), which is not on this map. Cited by 3 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Depression as Risk Factor for Dementia
Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed.
- Cognitive Impairment, Dementia and Depression in Older Adults.Journal of clinical medicine · 2026Review
- Loneliness Subtypes and Their Association With Prevalent and Incident Dementia.Journal of applied gerontology : the official journal of the Southern Gerontological Society · 2026Article
- Loneliness trajectories and dementia risk: Insights from the HUNT cohort study.Alzheimer's & dementia (Amsterdam, Netherlands)Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
11 authors.
Funding
Abstract
introductionLoneliness is postulated to be a risk factor for dementia. However, the findings are inconsistent, and long-term studies on this association remain scarce.
methodsIn all, 9389 participants self-reported loneliness in the Trøndelag Health Study (HUNT) in HUNT1 (1984-1986), HUNT2 (1995-1997), and/or HUNT3 (2006-2008) and underwent cognitive assessment in HUNT4 (2017-2019) at age 70 years or older. Logistic regression was employed to analyze the association between the course of loneliness and dementia, with those never lonely as a reference.
resultsIn the fully adjusted model, the odds ratio (OR) for persistent loneliness was 1.47 (95% confidence interval [CI] 1.10, 1.95). This attenuated when adjusting for depression (OR 1.28, 95% CI 0.95, 1.72). DISCUSSION: Persistent loneliness from midlife into older age, as well as becoming lonely, were associated with increased odds of dementia, whereas transient loneliness in midlife was not. These findings underscore the importance of reducing loneliness. Clinical trial registration: The study was registered with ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT04786561) and is available online . Highlights: Persistent and incident loneliness was associated with a higher risk of dementia.Transient loneliness was not associated with a higher risk of dementia.Loneliness 11 years before to the cognitive assessment was associated with dementia.Reducing the sense of loneliness might reduce or delay the onset of dementia.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.