Getting divorced, losing a parent or being fired can age the brain by four years, a new study suggests.
One stressful event– even including falling out with the in-laws – could increase the risk of dementia, according to data which suggest life’s hard misfortunes could have knock-on effects decades later.
Efforts to cushion the blow of bereavement, abuse or other traumatic events could help protect the brain, experts speculated.
Researchers at the University of Wisconsin looked at 1,320 adults with an average age of 58 to study how a variety of stressful life events, ranging from serious illness to imprisonment, affected the brain.
Those who had more such problems scored worse on cognitive tests, scientists told the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference in London today.
Advertisement
Megan Zuelsdorrff, who led the research, said the effect was particularly pronounced in the black people she studied who tended to have suffered more, calculating that for them “adverse events across the lifespan predict cognitive function more strongly than established risk factors including age, education and the APOE-e4 Alzheimer’s risk gene”.
Maria Carrillo, chief scientific officer at the Alzheimer’s Association, said that “each stressful situation amounts to about four years of cognitive ageing”, pointing out these could happen at any time in life.
Exactly how stress damages the brain is not clear, but the tissue inflammation it is known to cause is thought to be the most likely explanation. Chronic inflammation can cause damage over time, while also perhaps making the brain more vulnerable to later illness. Depression brought on by serious life problems could also contribute, as it is known to be linked to dementia.