The association of Alzheimer's disease genetic risk with social connectedness in middle- and older ages - PubMed (original) (raw)

. 2026 Mar 17;195(4):894-900.

doi: 10.1093/aje/kwaf122.

Ruijia Chen 1, Mary Thoma 2, Lucia Pacca 3, Jillian Hebert 3, Alicia Riley 4, Min Hee Kim 5, Annie Pederson 1, Yulin Yang 2, Peter Buto 1, Willa D Brenowitz 6, M Maria Glymour 1, Ashwin Kotwal 7, Jacqueline M Torres 2

Affiliations

The association of Alzheimer's disease genetic risk with social connectedness in middle- and older ages

Scott C Zimmerman et al. Am J Epidemiol. 2026.

Abstract

Observational evidence suggests that social connectedness protects against Alzheimer's disease (AD), but reverse causality has not been ruled out. We evaluated the potential for a reverse path by estimating associations between AD genetic risk score (AD-GRS) and social connectedness across mid and late-life. We used data from 487 194 UK Biobank participants aged 40+ years and considered social connectedness measures capturing social isolation, loneliness, relationship satisfaction, emotional support, and diverse social activity participation. Participants' mean age was 56.5 (SD: 8.2) years. Higher AD-GRS was associated with a lower social isolation score (β = 0.01; 95% CI, -0.014 to -0.001); these associations strengthened with age. Higher AD-GRS was associated with higher levels of family relationship satisfaction (β = 0.01; 95% CI, 0.001-0.01), but this association was attenuated with age. Higher AD-GRS was associated with engaging in a wider variety of social activities (β = 0.02, 95% CI, 0.004-0.03), with no evidence of heterogeneity by age. Associations with loneliness, friendship relationship quality, and perceived emotional support were null. Overall, we did not find evidence that higher risk of AD is associated with reduced social connectedness. Instead, preclinical AD symptoms may lead to stronger family relationships and lower social isolation.

Keywords: Alzheimer’s disease; genetic risk score; loneliness; social connectedness; social isolation.

© The Author(s) 2025. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. All rights reserved. For commercial re-use, please contact reprints@oup.com for reprints and translation rights for reprints. All other permissions can be obtained through our RightsLink service via the Permissions link on the article page on our site—for further information please contact journals.permissions@oup.com.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

References

    1. Huang AR, Roth DL, Cidav T, et al. Social isolation and 9-year dementia risk in community-dwelling Medicare beneficiaries in the United States. J. Am. Geriatr. Soc. 2023;71(3):765-773. 10.1111/jgs.18140 -DOI -PMC -PubMed
    1. Kotwal AA, Kim J, Waite L, et al. Social function and cognitive status: results from a US nationally representative survey of older adults. J. Gen. Intern. Med. 2016;31(8):854-862. 10.1007/s11606-016-3696-0 -DOI -PMC -PubMed
    1. Shen LX, Yang YX, Kuo K, et al. Social isolation, social interaction, and Alzheimer’s disease: a Mendelian randomization study. J. Alzheimers Dis. 2021;80(2):665-672. 10.3233/JAD-201442 -DOI -PubMed
    1. Murata C, Saito T, Saito M, et al. The association between social support and incident dementia: a 10-year follow-up study in Japan. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health. 2019;16(2):239. 10.3390/ijerph16020239 -DOI -PMC -PubMed
    1. Luchetti M, Terracciano A, Aschwanden D, et al. Loneliness is associated with risk of cognitive impairment in the survey of health, ageing and retirement in Europe. Int. J. Geriatr. Psychiatry. 2020;35(7):794-801. 10.1002/gps.5304 -DOI -PMC -PubMed

MeSH terms

Grants and funding

LinkOut - more resources