The ANXIETY-DEMENTIA link

Dementia is on the rise in the United States. Although age, past medical history, family history, and social lifestyle habits (like diet and exercise) can all play in role in Alzheimer’s/dementia risk, there is growing evidence that persistent emotional stressful states also contributes to the risk. Short-term, temporary episodes of fear and stress such as those experienced by people before an exam, job interview or driving test are part of everyday life. However, scientists have found that when feelings of stress and anxiety become long-term, chronic conditions due to work or personal problems, they can begin to “wreak havoc” on immune, metabolic and cardiovascular systems and cause damage to the brain.

The negative effects of stress on health have been acknowledged in the scientific literature for decades. More recently, however, investigators have focused on the effects of stress, particularly chronic stress, on the brain. Psychosocial stressors have been associated with lower levels of brain performance and an accelerated rate of cognitive decline. There are many logical reasons why stress could be linked to dementia. Stress affects the immune system, which is known to play an important role in the development of dementia. A key hormone released when we are stressed, cortisol, has been linked to problems with memory. Stress is also closely linked to conditions such as depression and anxiety, which have also been suggested as factors that could increase risk of dementia. Some research has found that stress appears to have a direct impact on some of the mechanisms underlying dementia in animal models. Published animal studies have shown a possible causative link between stress and neuropathology associated with dementia, demonstrating that stress is associated with neuronal synapse loss, increases in amyloid β-peptide, and tau accumulation and phosphorylation…all factors in the development of dementia.

Correlations have been reported between mid-life anxiety/depression and the incidence of dementia. In a cohort of more than thirteen thousand patients who were tracked over the course of 50 years, the coincidence of depressive symptoms and dementia was analyzed. They found that those who experience mid to late-life depression had a two-fold elevated risk of a dementia diagnosis (including all potential pathological causes of dementia including Alzheimer’s). This effect was specific to mid/late-life onset depression; early-life depression did not predict increased risk while mid-life depression conferred a 20% increase in risk.

Some researchers, however, state that depressive symptoms themselves may be an earlier symptom of dementia and that depression does not elevate the risk of future dementia. As published in the journal JAMA psychiatry (2017), “…results suggest that depressive symptoms are a prodromal feature of dementia or that the 2 share common causes. The findings do not support the hypothesis that depressive symptoms increase the risk for dementia”.

Nonetheless, what ALL data supports is that chronic emotional stressful states, depression, and anxiety wreak havoc on my mind AND body.

Meditate Your Brain to Better Health

A study published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease explored changes to memory performance and cerebral blood flow in participants after just 8 weeks of practicing meditation. The researchers found that the 2-month meditation program resulted in significant increases in blood flow, as well as improvements in verbal fluency and memory. Overall, the study suggests that meditation can help combat mental decline.

Various studies provide evidence to support this notion. A systematic review in the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences states: “On the basis of a growing body of research that shows that meditation has positive effects on cognition in younger and middle-aged adults, meditation may be able to offset normal age-related cognitive decline or even enhance cognitive function in older adults.”

So let’s be MNDFUL of our MINDFULNESS! Come us…let us TRAIN OUR BRAINS to be better, smarter, and more at peace.