People suffering from depression may have twice the risk of developing dementia later in their life, found a new study. It is well known to experts that the two conditions frequently co-exist, but not clear whether one really escorts to another. Researchers thought that brain chemistry and lifestyle aspects such as diet and the amount of time a person spent socially may play a key role.
The findings simply reveal the link not a direct cause. While it is unclear whether depression causes dementia, there are a number of ways depression might impact the risk of dementia. Inflammation of brain tissue which occurs when a person is depressed might contribute to dementia. , said Dr Jane Saczynski, lead researcher of the study from the University of Massachusetts.
There are certain proteins found in the brain which increase with depression may almost double the risk of developing dementia later in life. Their study perused more than nine hundred elderly people for seventeen years, showed dementia more frequently went behind a bout of depression. End of the study found one hundred and sixty-four people with dementia.
Specially, twenty-two percent people who had depression went on to develop dementia compared to seven percent those did not have depression. The results of second study showed that more times individual experienced depression, the greater their risk of dementia was. Two or more episodes of depression almost doubled the risk of dementia.
It is renowned that depression is common in early stage of dementia. The study exhibits that depression at a youthful age is possibly an important risk factor for dementia. The more research is needed to establish why link exits, said Professor Clive Ballard from the Alzheimer’s Society.
These newest studies propose that there may be unfathomable connections between dementia and depression so they must expand the research to find out more, said Rebecca Wood, chief executive of the Alzheimer’s Research Trust.