Earlier this year, the Alzheimer’s Association came out with their latest facts and figures report. In that report, statistics show that women are at a significantly higher risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease in their lifetime. Now a study just published on the online version of the journal Neurology claims that women who are moody, anxious and jealous in middle age are more likely to develop dementia.
The findings come from an exhaustive, almost 40-year-long study. Researchers studied 800 women with an average age of 46 and followed them for 38 years. These women were given personality tests that assessed their neuroticism and extraversion or introversion. Of those women, 19 percent had developed dementia by the conclusion of the study.
The researchers’most interesting findings came from women who scored higher in tests on neuorticism. Those women had nearly double the rate of dementia compared to women who scored lower on the test. Researchers concluded that the link was long-standing stress.
“Most Alzheimer’s research has been devoted to factors such as education, heart and blood risk factors, head trauma, family history and genetics,”said study author Lena Johannsson, PhD, of the University of Gothenburg in Sweden. “Personality may influence the individual’s risk for dementia through its effect on behavior, lifestyle or reactions to stress.”
Researchers hope to conduct more studies on personality as a contributor to the rise of dementia in the general population. Coupled with new breakthroughs such as simple blood testing for Alzheimer’s researchers are excited at the future of dementia testing.
To learn more about this study, please click here.
