Living alone and seeing few people increases the risk of dying from a stroke, according to a study conducted in the United Kingdom.
The study, published on Tuesday, collected data from 479,000 people, who answered a questionnaire to find out if they were "socially isolated" (how many people they saw, how often they left) and if they felt lonely.
"The social isolation and the feeling of loneliness are associated with a higher risk of severe myocardial infarction or stroke," the Finnish researchers write in the medical journal Heart.
"Social isolation seems to be a risk factor for independent mortality after a heart attack or stroke," they add.
The originality of the study was to isolate this factor from the others. In fact, living alone is often accompanied by other risks to the heart, such as an unhealthy lifestyle (smoking, unbalanced diet, lack of physical activity), poor mental health and poverty.
Excluding these other risks, the fact of living alone increases the chance of dying 32% after a heart attack or stroke.