PMC:7796152 / 18688-23378 JSONTXT

{"target":"https://pubannotation.org/docs/sourcedb/PMC/sourceid/7796152","sourcedb":"PMC","sourceid":"7796152","source_url":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/7796152","text":"5. Discussion\nThe present research was conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic. During this crisis, older adults are being considered a population at risk; therefore, people of this age are expected to maintain physical distance and reduce the frequency of leaving their home as much as possible [64]. In light of the loneliness potentially caused by social and physical distancing, the purpose of this study was to examine the possible connection between loneliness and subjective age during the COVID-19 pandemic, and to investigate whether loneliness was indirectly associated with subjective age through depressive symptoms and malnutrition. Finally, an attempt was made to determine whether older adults, at a time when their age puts them at risk in terms of physical and mental health, felt older than their chronological age [1].\nThe research findings confirm the first hypothesis: the older adults’ subjective age was higher at this time of crisis compared with a less stressful time. This result is consistent with those of other studies [1,65] that showed that older adults had a higher subjective age in times of crisis, distress, and stress. There are several possible explanations of this finding. First, the influence of stress and age are interactive. Psychological stress can both imitate and worsen the effects of aging, with older adults usually showing greater immunological impairment and stress than younger adults [65]. Previous studies have shown that older subjective age is related to higher levels of stress [66,67]. This could be particularly true for daily stressors, which, if they accumulate, create persistent irritation and overload that may result in more serious stress reactions [68,69] such as less energy. The resulting feeling (or actual state) of exhaustion is consistent with feeling older.\nWith regard to the second and third hypotheses, the results indicate a direct and positive connection between feelings of loneliness and subjective age; the lonelier the participants, the higher was their subjective age. This finding is also consistent with the literature [19,29]. The size of one’s social network, the satisfaction related to it, and feeling part of the social network have been found to be associated with subjective age [29,70]. Researchers have also found that the connection between loneliness and subjective age is bidirectional. Having a large social network is associated with younger subjective age; older adults who feel younger tend to be friendlier than their cohorts who feel older, and conversely, feeling older than one’s chronological age may limit the desire and capacity for maintaining social relationships, which may reflect compromised physical and emotional well-being [29]. The examination of two variables that might mediate the direct connection between loneliness and subjective age confirmed the effect of malnutrition, but not depressive symptoms.\nPrevious research has addressed the connection between loneliness and malnutrition, and has found that loneliness may affect appetite and nutrient intake through a decline in mood, physical functioning, or cognition [71]. These, in turn, combined with the difficulty of eating alone and changes in social status, particularly due to the loss of a spouse or friends of the same age group, can further inhibit appetite [72]. In comparison, eating with others can help prevent malnutrition. It increases caloric intake, is related to healthier food habits [73,74], and maintains the motivation of older adults to eat and cook, providing them with opportunities for social interaction and connectedness [75]. Another possible explanation is the association between deconditioning and loneliness, deconditioning contributes to frailty and fear of falling. The fear of falling could also contribute to avoiding grocery shopping and a diminished desire to stand while preparing meals. To the best of our knowledge, the finding of a correlation between malnutrition and subjective age is new. It can be explained by the findings of previous research that in older adults, a young subjective age is associated with good health, functional health, and wellbeing [4,45]. Moreover, a comparison between unobserved (blood pressure and telomere length) and observed (grip strength, expiratory flow, and waist circumference) health measures found that the observed health measures were connected to younger subjective age [2]. Against this background, it can be assumed that inadequate nutrition that leads to malnutrition could become an observed health problem that influences functional health. These findings help explain the connection between malnutrition and subjective 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