at least i'll forget my troubles

What do you get if you cross my greatest fear with the deepest truth of my existence?

No, not another lengthy disruption to posting blog entries.

But good guess.

Actually you get this BBC story, the punchline to which is

People who are lonely are twice as likely to develop Alzheimer's disease, a large US study has suggested.

Great. Just great.

It also does my heart, to say nothing of my brain, good to know that

Rebecca Wood chief executive of the Alzheimer's Research Trust said, "What I find particularly interesting about this study is the fact that it is an individual's perception of being lonely rather than their actual degree of social isolation that seems to correlate most closely with their Alzheimer's risk."