Midlife stress may raise women's dementia risk

Conclusion Overall, this study suggests an association between reported stressors, distress and dementia later in life among a group of women living in Sweden. It does not provide proof that stress occurring in mid-life leads to dementia. The study has some strengths, including that the sample was reportedly representative of the population, and that women were followed for a long period of time (38 years). Also valid diagnostic criteria were used to diagnose dementia subtypes. Despite these strengths, there remain several limitations of the study, some of which are reported by the authors. These include: Stress and distress are very non-specific exposures to examine. They may mean different things to different people and be caused by different things. The study only considered a select number of "stressors". Other stressors such as physical abuse or severe physical illness were not included. As such, women who had experienced other stressors may not have been captured in this study.  Related to this, participants were asked about the occurrence of some stressors anytime before the start of the study but only asked about other stressors in the previous year which may not be a reliable method of assessing stress. "Distress" was measured by self-report and the researchers did not include an objective measurement to assess this. Aside from increasing age and possibly genetics, the risk factors for Alzheimer’s disease are not firmly est...
Source: NHS News Feed - Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Neurology Lifestyle/exercise Source Type: news