A new research points out that anxiety can increase the risk of dementia by as much as 48%.
This is based on a study conducted by University of Southern California (USC) researchers when they analyzed the data of a previous Swedish research.
The Swedish study is called Adoption Twin Study of Aging, and as its name suggests, it was participated by more than 1,000 sets of twins, whether fraternal or identical, in the country. The participants had to go through various face-to-face interviews, answer several questionnaires, while the research team screened them for dementia, a broad term for degenerative conditions that affect memory like Alzheimer's disease.
In the study published in Alzheimer's & Dementia, the USC team focused on the relationship between dementia and the participants' reported level of anxiety. They discovered that there seems to be a link between dementia and anxiety. To be more specific, the twin who reported a higher level of anxiety, described as "frantic" or "frazzled," tends to develop dementia later. In fact, the risk is high at 48%. It should be noted, however, that not all of them registered clinical anxiety, which is described by the American Psychiatry Association as excessive anxiousness or fear.
The USC group led by Andrew Petkus, PhD, mentioned that anxiety especially among older people, is not often studied as more focus is given to depression. But he also explains it could be because anxiety is more chronic that it's often believed to be part of everyday life and a person's personality.
Although the study didn't provide a definitive reason for the results, Petkus posited that it could be because anxiety also increases the production of cortisol, a stress hormone. Too much cortisol can damage certain parts of the brain responsible for analytical thinking and memory.
Moreover, since anxiety-dementia link was more pronounced among fraternal than identical twins, genes may also have a role.
