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“If we want to reduce the risk of dementia, one strategy is to focus on early cognitive, medical and mental health.”
More and more evidence shows that the risk of dementia in later life may be affected by early life experiences. In addition to lifestyle, personality factors have gradually entered the researcher’s field of vision.
Recently, the Journal of the American Medical Association magazine JAMA Psychiatry published a study that spans half a century and covers more than 80,000 people. The data shows that a person’s adolescent character is also associated with dementia. Related to the risk of illness.
Screenshot source: JAMA Psychiatry official website
Characteristics can affect a person’s health behavior, stress resistance, academic career achievement, etc., and after decades of accumulation, these factors may also affect the risk of dementia. To explore this association, the research team led by the University of Rochester (Project Talent) data.
This project originated in 1960 and was a national sample study covering 5% of the nation’s high school students. These subjects received a series of tests and questionnaires during the year to assess their ability, personality and family background in all aspects. The analysis included 82,232 subjects with dementia-related screening records during 2011-2013, and women accounted for 50.1%. At this time, 54 years have passed since they first participated in the study, and 2,543 have been replaced. Dementia.
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After adjusting for factors such as gender, ethnicity, and family background, the analysis found that adolescents are energetic, have a calm and mature personality and are associated with a lower risk of dementia. Factors such as social will, empathy, impulsiveness, leadership, order, cultural tolerance, and self-confidence did not significantly affect.
Specifically, adolescents who scored higher on the Vitality Scale (energetic, highly extroverted), in 50 years The risk of post-dementia is reduced by 7%. The research team pointed out that vitality assessments are all related to physical activity and physical fitness, and also have this effect in people with higher body mass index. This may mean that the habits of adolescent activities help to maintain and continue into old age, and many studies have shown that physical activity in middle-aged and old age is associated with a reduced risk of dementia.
It is worth noting that the protective effect of “vigor” on the risk of dementia is roughly equivalent to the protective effect of a family’s socio-economic situation in adolescence (from poor to average, or from average to good).
Adolescent sexMore calm (easy to get rid of negative emotions, not emotional), more mature (Responsible, reliable), which is associated with a 11% and 10% reduction in the risk of dementia in the elderly. However, this is limited to people with better family socioeconomic conditions. As the family background score decreases, the relationship between these two personality traits and the risk of dementia in the future is gradually weakened.
The research team explained that calmness helps to improve our physiological response to chronic stress, while poor socioeconomic conditions put additional stress, which offsets the protective effects of both.
Image Source: Pexels
One of the study authors, Columbia University (Columbia University) Professor of Neurology, Dr. Jennifer Manly, said, “This study suggests that if we want One strategy to reduce the risk of dementia is to focus on early cognitive, medical, and mental health. This is consistent with other similar findings.”
There is a lot of evidence in the past that the temperament of people with dementia will change. However, whether personality affects the onset of dementia or one of the symptoms of the disease has always lacked an exact answer. The study began with people’s early health and began to uncover the reasons.
Dr. Anton Porsteinsson, head of the Alzheimer’s disease treatment, research and education program at the University of Rochester, commented that this leaves more questions, such as whether the personality is directly or indirectly affected, and other A deeper understanding of how the social environment or genetic factors associated with dementia interact.
Dr. Porsteinsson reminds that at present, the results of this study do not mean that the character is good or bad. “We don’t want everyone to be carved out of a mold.”
References:
[1] Benjamin P. Chapman, et al., (2019). Association Between High School Personality Phenotype and Dementia 54 Years Later in Results From a National US Sample. JAMA Psychiatry , 10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2019.3120
[2] Do Personality Traits in Teens Indicate Future Dementia Risk?. Retrieved Oct 22, 2019, from https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/920122
[3] Your personality as a teen may predict your risk of dementia. Retrieved Oct 22, 2019, from https://medicalxpress.com/news/2019-10-personality -teen-dementia.html
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