U.S. Study Links Worrying to Alzheimer’s

According to researchers at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, those who often experience negative emotions such as depression and anxiety are twice as likely to develop Alzheimer’s than those less prone to such emotions.

The study focused on 797 people, with an average age of 75, who were evaluated both for psychological distress and mental decline when they started the study and then yearly. During an average of 4.9 years of follow-up, 140 people in the study developed Alzheimer’s. Those scoring in the top 10 per cent of the distress scale were twice as likely to develop the brain disease than those who scored in the lowest 10 per cent.

“People differ in their tendency to experience psychological distress and this is a stable personality trait throughout adulthood,” said Robert Wilson, lead author of the study that appears in the journal Neurology. [ http://www.neurology.org via http://www.dralexlees.com ]