Research was conducted over a period of 38 years.
By Dileep Thekkethil
BANGALORE: Even as researches say the line between young and middle age is fast disappearing, a new study has found that women who experience anxiety, frequent mood shifts and stress in their middle age have high possibility of incurring Alzheimer’s disease.
The research was conducted over a long period of 38 years. In the early stage of the study, the researchers identified 800 women, who were at an average age of 46. They followed these women for almost three decades, evaluating the level of distress each of them experienced during their middle ages. The researchers categorized them as introverts and extroverts later putting their memory capabilities into test.
All through the study, 153 women were diagnosed with mental disorders caused due to brain diseases, out of which 104 women developed Alzheimer’s.
The researchers were able to conclude that women who experienced higher levels of anxiety and stress, known as high neuroticism, during their middle age, were the ones who came under chronic neurotic attack later in their life. They also found that women with long istory of extreme distress were more vulnerable to Alzheimer’s disease than the ones who experience low distress level during middle age.
Lena Johansson, from the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, and the study’s lead author, told LiveScience that “We saw that persons with a high degree of neuroticism, combined with a low degree of extraversion, had the highest risk of Alzheimer’s disease,”
Meanwhile, the study also says that not all women with neuroticism came under the risk of developing Alzheimer’s. According to the researchers, only those women with high neuroticism, accompanied by persistent emotional stress and mood shifts have the likelihood of getting affected by Alzheimer’s disease.
It was written in the research paper that, “it is possible that neuroticism makes the individual more vulnerable to stressors and distress, which leads to later development of dementia,”
All the 800 women selected for the study were asked a series of questions to rate the distress level of each of them. The questions were related to extreme stress situations that they faced in the last five years with regard to work, health or family, which lasted for over a month. They were asked to rate the stress level on a scale of zero to five. Any answer above three to five was considered as high level of distress.
Researchers say that this is not the only possibility for developing Alzheimer’s disease. For instance, women who have low neuroticism might develop Alzheimer’s due to unhealthy lifestyle.
Early studies had stated that mood changes in humans are associated with certain fluctuations inside the brain that is caused due to abnormal levels of neurotransmitters. There are many neurotransmitters in brain and one such transmitter called Serotonin is associated with sleep, moods, and emotional state of a person.
The current research is only the tip of the iceberg. Researchers will now have to understand the co-relation between neuroticism and Alzheimer’s disease to come to a definite medical conclusion.
Johansson said, “it remains to be seen whether neuroticism could be modified,”
Alzheimer’s disease is one of the most common forms of dementia or chronic and persistent disorder of the mental processes in humans. It is estimated that five million American people who are aged 65 or above have Alzheimer disease. Also, about 200,000 people under the age 65 are early victims of Alzheimer’s. Studies also give figures that say one in nine (which is approximately 11%) of people age 65 or above have Alzheimer’s disease.