{"id":1260,"date":"2018-04-30T23:32:11","date_gmt":"2018-04-30T23:32:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmjopen\/?p=1260"},"modified":"2018-04-26T12:35:47","modified_gmt":"2018-04-26T12:35:47","slug":"moderate-to-severe-mid-life-anxiety-may-be-linked-to-later-life-dementia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmjopen\/2018\/04\/30\/moderate-to-severe-mid-life-anxiety-may-be-linked-to-later-life-dementia\/","title":{"rendered":"Moderate to severe mid-life anxiety may be linked to later life dementia"},"content":{"rendered":"<p dir=\"ltr\"><span id=\"m_-87341592868670488m_-5742816061084200952docs-internal-guid-14189b24-017e-9176-9e82-c3dcd0e755f8\"><em>But it\u2019s not clear whether active treatment might curb risk, say researchers<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><span id=\"m_-87341592868670488m_-5742816061084200952docs-internal-guid-14189b24-017e-9176-9e82-c3dcd0e755f8\"><a href=\"http:\/\/bmjopen.bmj.com\/lookup\/doi\/10.1136\/bmjopen-2017-019399\">Moderate to severe mid-life anxiety may be linked to dementia in later life, suggests an analysis<\/a> of the available published evidence in the online journal <strong><em><a href=\"http:\/\/bmjopen.bmj.com\/\">BMJ Open<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><span id=\"m_-87341592868670488m_-5742816061084200952docs-internal-guid-14189b24-017e-9176-9e82-c3dcd0e755f8\">But as yet, it\u2019s not clear whether active treatment could curb this risk, and whether non-drug therapies, such as mindfulness and meditation, which are known to reduce anxiety might help, say the researchers.<\/span><\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><span id=\"m_-87341592868670488m_-5742816061084200952docs-internal-guid-14189b24-017e-9176-9e82-c3dcd0e755f8\">A mounting body of evidence suggests that mental illness may be associated with dementia in older age, but it\u2019s not clear if it represents initial (prodromal) symptoms before the advent of fully fledged disease or if it acts as an independent risk factor.<\/span><\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><span id=\"m_-87341592868670488m_-5742816061084200952docs-internal-guid-14189b24-017e-9176-9e82-c3dcd0e755f8\">To probe this further, the researchers trawled research databases for studies looking at the association between mid-life anxiety, in isolation or combined with depression, and the development of dementia.<\/span><\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><span id=\"m_-87341592868670488m_-5742816061084200952docs-internal-guid-14189b24-017e-9176-9e82-c3dcd0e755f8\">Only four out of more than 3500 studies met these criteria, but they involved a total of nearly 30,000 people.<\/span><\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><span id=\"m_-87341592868670488m_-5742816061084200952docs-internal-guid-14189b24-017e-9176-9e82-c3dcd0e755f8\">All of the studies accounted for a range of potentially influential demographic, physical, and psychological factors, and all found an association between moderate to severe anxiety and future dementia, with a gap of at least 10 years in between diagnoses.<\/span><\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><span id=\"m_-87341592868670488m_-5742816061084200952docs-internal-guid-14189b24-017e-9176-9e82-c3dcd0e755f8\">Because the study design differed so much, pooled analysis of the data couldn\u2019t be undertaken, but the studies were all of high quality, strengthening the findings, say the researchers.<\/span><\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><span id=\"m_-87341592868670488m_-5742816061084200952docs-internal-guid-14189b24-017e-9176-9e82-c3dcd0e755f8\">The findings back up recent evidence pointing to a link between anxiety and risk of mild cognitive impairment, and lend weight to the known association between depression and dementia, they say.<\/span><\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><span id=\"m_-87341592868670488m_-5742816061084200952docs-internal-guid-14189b24-017e-9176-9e82-c3dcd0e755f8\">An abnormal stress response, which is typical of moderate to severe anxiety, may speed up brain cell ageing and degenerative changes in the central nervous system, so increasing vulnerability to dementia, they suggest.<\/span><\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><span id=\"m_-87341592868670488m_-5742816061084200952docs-internal-guid-14189b24-017e-9176-9e82-c3dcd0e755f8\">\u201cWhether reducing anxiety in middle age would result in reduced risk of dementia remains an open question,\u201d they write.\u00a0 But approaches other than anti-anxiety drugs may be worth testing, they say.<\/span><\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><span id=\"m_-87341592868670488m_-5742816061084200952docs-internal-guid-14189b24-017e-9176-9e82-c3dcd0e755f8\">\u201cNon-pharmacological therapies, including talking therapies and mindfulness-based interventions and meditation practices, that are known to reduce anxiety in midlife, could have a risk reducing effect, although this is yet to be thoroughly researched,\u201d they caution.<\/span><\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><span id=\"m_-87341592868670488m_-5742816061084200952docs-internal-guid-14189b24-017e-9176-9e82-c3dcd0e755f8\">But they suggest that given the prevalence of anxiety, it may be worth doctors considering anxiety a risk factor for dementia as well as depression.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><!--TrendMD v2.4.8--><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>But it\u2019s not clear whether active treatment might curb risk, say researchers Moderate to severe mid-life anxiety may be linked to dementia in later life, suggests an analysis of the available published evidence in the online journal BMJ Open. But as yet, it\u2019s not clear whether active treatment could curb this risk, and whether non-drug [&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"btn btn-secondary understrap-read-more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmjopen\/2018\/04\/30\/moderate-to-severe-mid-life-anxiety-may-be-linked-to-later-life-dementia\/\">Read More&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2470,511],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1260","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-content","category-in-the-news"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Moderate to severe mid-life anxiety may be linked to later life dementia - BMJ Open<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmjopen\/2018\/04\/30\/moderate-to-severe-mid-life-anxiety-may-be-linked-to-later-life-dementia\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Moderate to severe mid-life anxiety may be linked to later life dementia - BMJ Open\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"But it\u2019s not clear whether active treatment might curb risk, say researchers Moderate to severe mid-life anxiety may be linked to dementia in later life, suggests an analysis of the available published evidence in the online journal BMJ Open. 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