Relationships Do Matter in Fending Off Alzheimer’s

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Today, we bring you two stories in our special report on the international Alzheimer's conference in Chicago. Come back tomorrow for more news.

New research that promises to generate intense debate among people who are single, divorced or widowed strongly suggests that unmarried men and women have a much greater risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease.

The study, the first to evaluate whether midlife marital status influences cognitive function in later life, examined 1,449 men and women at midlife (at an average age of 50) and then reexamined them again 21 years later.

Researchers found that those who were married or living with a partner in midlife had a 50 percent lower risk of having dementia later in life, compared to those who lived alone—even after adjusting for education, occupation, exercise, general health and other variables.

People who were single throughout their lives had double the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease, while those who were divorced and stayed divorced from midlife on had triple the risk.

The most dramatic risk increase was found among those who lost a spouse in midlife and stayed single: Compared to their married peers, they had more than a sixfold risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease. The study findings were released today at the Alzheimer’s Association meeting in Chicago.

“I was surprised by the results,” says Krister Håkansson, the lead author of the study and a psychologist at the KI Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center at the Karolinska Institutet, in Stockholm, Sweden. “They’re very dramatic. The interesting question is: What is it about being in a couples relationship, whether married or not, that is protective? Is it the cognitive and intellectual stimulation that comes with living in a relationship or is it something related to other things, like social or emotional factors? We think it is probably a social network, doing things with other people, not isolating yourself.”

Håkansson says he designed the study on marital status and Alzheimer’s because he knew that intellectual stimulation and cognitive challenges have been shown to help protect against disease. “Living in a couple relationship provides very intense cognitive stimulation and might be protective too,” he says. “You have to solve problems together and look at a perspective that is different from your own.”

Of course, people who are married still get Alzheimer’s, but the researcher says their risk is lower. What’s more, even if they have underlying dementia on a neurological level, “it may be that different kinds of social stimulation will help the brain and postpone the dementia,” he says.

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While people who were single and remained single their entire lives had an increased risk of Alzheimer’s when compared with married people,  “they were much better off ” than the people who got divorced or lost a spouse in midlife, he says. “I think that’s because lifelong singles often develop a strong social network of friends and family.”

But those who become single in midlife, Håkansson says, may have trouble re-creating a social network because so many of their friends are married.

But there may be another reason for the dramatic increase in their risk, he says. “Perhaps social trauma in midlife that you do not recover from, like the trauma of losing a mate, triggers a genetic tendency for Alzheimer’s. I hope science will look at other kinds of social trauma that might have long-term consequences, to see if that holds.”

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