Anxious Life Circumstances Can Raise Your Alzheimer’s Risk

According to a recent study, those who have experienced stressful life events, such divorce or the death of a loved one, are more likely to develop dementia in later life. only in the situation that the traumatic incident occurred in midlife or childhood.

The 1,290 participants in the study, which was published in the Annals of Neurology, were more likely to get Alzheimer’s disease. The researchers examined the timing of eighteen stressful life events in the lives of participants.

A subset of the group (393 people) had their spinal fluid samples taken in order to search for aberrant proteins known as tau and amyloid that are linked to Alzheimer’s disease. They also measured gray matter volume and searched for indications of brain inflammation, which is assumed to have a role in the illness. Gray matter, which is important for thought and information processing, tends to be less in Alzheimer’s patients.

Stressful life events did not correlate with gray matter shrinkage, despite the fact that the researchers discovered that stressful life events in childhood and midlife were linked to “biological markers” of Alzheimer’s (abnormal amyloid and tau).

It is possible that the existence of Alzheimer’s disease markers indicates that the impacts of stress on brain chemistry and reactions are most during childhood and midlife. During childhood, the brain undergoes tremendous development, and scientists believe that stress can have long-term consequences, such as raising the chance of Alzheimer’s disease.