Study finds daily stress causes deterioration of brain health in the elderly



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A new study found that daily stress can lead to brain damage in the elderly.

According to a report by Scientific news, a new study from Oregon State University found that seniors who were stressed by their daily activities had a faster deterioration in cognitive health than those who took it lightly. Typical announcements such as traffic jams or long waits in the medical office, those who reacted emotionally on a regular basis showed a clear decline in brain health and an increase in the number of diseases such as Alzheimer's disease and dementia.

"These findings confirm that people's daily emotions and how they respond to stressors play an important role in cognitive health," said Robert Stawski, an associate professor in the Faculty of Public Health and Human Sciences of the University of Toronto. 39, OSU, and the main author of the study.

"It's not the stressor itself that contributes to mental decline, but the reaction of a person who affects the brain."

Eric Cerino and Dakota Witzel, students of OSU, as well as Stuart W.S., a student at the University of Victoria. MacDonald co-authored the study, which was recently published in Psychosomatic medicine, which is the scholarly journal of the American Psychosomatic Society.

The largest growing group of adults is those aged 80 and over, and this research is the latest in a series that highlights typical daily stressors causing serious health problems, well-being and cognition.

The study included 111 older adults aged 65 to 95 years old. It has been followed for 2.5 years by adults. Once every six months, participants spent six days of cognitive testing for two weeks. They reported the stressors they had experienced that day and looked at two different strings of numbers to determine if they appeared in both groups.

The authors of the study found that older participants, aged 70 to 90, who reacted more emotionally to typical everyday situations, also experienced a significant decline in their cognitive abilities. However, their youngest subjects, from the late 1960s to the mid-1970s, had better results, the more they were stressed on any day during the study.

"These relatively young participants may have a more active lifestyle, greater social and professional engagement, which could improve their mental functioning," said Stawski.

Based on this discovery, the authors suggest that as people age, they should become more aware of their typical life stress responses. "We can not completely get rid of everyday stressors," Stawski said.

"But giving people the skills to deal with stressors when they happen could pay off in terms of cognitive health."

According to CDC, 5 million Americans live with Alzheimer's disease, the most common form of dementia. In addition, the number of people with this disease doubles every five years in age groups older than 65 years.

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