Living Alone in Middle Age Increases Risk of Dementia
Researchers at Sweden’s Karolinska Institute found that a person’s marital status and genetic makeup could change their risk for developing dementia.
Researchers noted that the number of patients dealing with dementia stood at 25 million in 2005, but is expected to jump to 81 million by 2040.
In their study, researchers looked at about 2,000 men and women from eastern Finland at about the age of 50. They returned for a follow up study 21 years later.
Researchers focused on the gene APOE variant 4 as a determining factor for developing dementia. They also found that participants who lived alone during middle age had about twice the risk of developing dementia than those who lived with their significant other.
Meanwhile, widows and widowers had three times the risk of developing dementia, Dr Krister Hakannson and colleagues told BBC Health.
The highest risk of dementia was found in patients who had the gene APOE variant 4 and lived alone after the loss of their partner.
"Living in a relationship with a partner might imply cognitive and social challenges that have a protective effect against cognitive impairment in later life,” Hakannson’s team wrote in the British Medical Journal online.
Additionally, Dr Catherine Helmer of the University Victor Seglen in Bordeaux wrote an editorial in the same journal, stating: "One possibility is that the age and conditions of widowhood are crucial factors.”
"Being widowed late in life, as were most of the people in previous studies, is perhaps less stressful – especially as the person is widowed for a shorter duration – and might thus not be a risk factor,” she added.
"Nevertheless, the hypothesis of a deleterious biological effect of widowhood remains to be proved, as does the possibility of genetic vulnerability as a link between widowhood and dementia."
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