JEALOUS , NEUROTIC WOMEN MAY FACE HIGHER ALZHEIMER'S RISK
Middle-aged women
with a neurotic personality style and prolonged stress may have a heightened
risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease, new research suggests.
Tracking 800 women
over nearly four decades, Swedish scientists found that those who were most
anxious, jealous and moody — which they defined as neurotic — and experienced
long-standing stress had double the risk of developing Alzheimer’s compared to
women scoring lowest in these traits.
“No other study has
shown that [one style of] midlife personality increased the risk of Alzheimer’s
disease over a period of nearly 40 years,” said study author Lena Johansson, a
researcher at University of Gothenburg.
Outside experts
cautioned, however, that the study results don’t prove that neuroticism
triggers Alzheimer’s, but they do suggest an association between the two.
The study is
published online Oct. 1 in the journal Neurology.
The most common type
of dementia, Alzheimer’s disease causes profound memory loss and impairments in
language, focus, judgment and visual perception, according to the Alzheimer’s
Association. About 5.2 million Americans have been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s,
which is progressive, incurable and ultimately fatal.
Johansson said she
believes the results would also be true for men. But study data — pulled from
research that began in the 1960s — happened to include only women in an era
when few medical studies focused on females.
In the new study,
participants with an average age of 46 were tracked for 38 years and given
memory tests and personality tests measuring their levels of neuroticism and
extraversion (defined as being outgoing) and introversion (defined as reserved
or shy).
Study authors defined
neuroticism as being easily distressed and exhibiting personality traits such
as anxiety, jealousy or moodiness. People with this personality style are more
likely, they said, to express guilt, anger, envy, worry and depression.
The women were also
asked if they had experienced any period of prolonged stress lasting one month
or longer and to rate their stress on a scale from zero to five, which
represented constant stress during the previous five years. Stress responses
included nervousness, sleep disturbances, fearfulness, irritability and
tension.
Being introverted or
extroverted alone didn’t seem to affect dementia risk, but women who were both
easily distressed and withdrawn (introverted) had the highest risk of
Alzheimer’s among all women analyzed. One-quarter of them developed the
disease, compared to only 13 percent of those considered outgoing (extroverted)
and not easily distressed.
“We know genetics
drives personality and disease itself, but there’s very little understanding of
how personality drives disease,” said Dean Hartley, director of science
initiatives for the Alzheimer’s Association, who was not involved in the
research. “We need more data.”
Just how might
personality influence the risk for dementia? By influencing a person’s
behavior, lifestyle or stress reactions, all of which affect overall health,
Johansson said. Also, prior research has indicated that neuroticism and stress
are associated with changes in the hippocampus, a brain structure affected
early in Alzheimer’s disease.
Hartley said the new
research was limited in its ability to measure participants’ actual stress
levels, since it did so by asking them a single question about stress every
five years instead of measuring specific biochemical responses to stress.
“Future studies
should examine . . . whether this [neurotic] group responds well to
interventions,” Johansson said. “It remains to be seen whether neuroticism
could be modified by medical treatment or through lifestyle changes.”
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