People who are depressed, stressed or constipated are statistically more often affected by Alzheimer’s disease. This is what French researchers have discovered by studying the medical records of French and British patients. A team from the Paris Brain Institute and the University of Bordeaux have accessed the medical data of nearly 80,000 patients, half of whom have been affected by Alzheimer’s disease, and the other half not.
With a mathematical modeling system, they tested the possible link between the occurrence of Alzheimer’s disease and 123 pathologies. Result: they were able to identify ten diseases significantly more frequent in Alzheimer’s patients in the two to ten years preceding the diagnosis. First comes depression followed by anxiety. Then come exposure to severe stress, hearing loss, constipation, spondyloarthritis, which is a chronic rheumatism, memory loss, fatigue, falls and sudden and unexplained weight loss. Some of these associations were already known, but the link with cervical osteoarthritis or constipation is more surprising.
Fortunately, it is not because one hears less well or that one is anxious that one will systematically develop Alzheimer’s disease: the study absolutely does not show a link of cause and effect. This is a statistical association at this stage. This study published in The Lancet Digital Health must still be deepened, recognize its authors, because at this stage, they do not know if the health problems encountered are risk factors or the first warning signs of the disease.
These results nevertheless open up avenues to be able to detect as soon as possible the people most at risk of developing this disease which generally evolves; silently, ten years before his diagnosis. Because even if today there is still no cure for Alzheimer’s disease, other researchers have shown that by acting on lifestyle, we could prevent or delay up to 40% of Alzheimer’s case.
These levers on which it is possible to act are the increase in the level of study and intellectual stimulation, but also the reduction of obesity, sedentary lifestyle, hypertension, as well as the consumption of alcohol or of tobacco.