Mounting evidence indicates that chronic exposure to emotional stressors, such as anxiety or fear, can make a person more susceptible to Alzheimer’s disease. The latest study comes from a team at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in San Diego that replicated the body’s reaction to mild stress by physically restraining mice for half an hour. The incident modified the tau protein, which gives neurons structural support, rendering it unable to fulfill its role. “This conversion is a key event in the development of Alz­heimer’s,” says Robert A. Rissman, lead author of the study. After a single stress episode, tau morphed back into its original state within 90 minutes. When the team induced stress every day for two weeks, however, tau remained in its modified state long enough to allow the individual protein molecules to clump together. These protein heaps are the first step toward neurofibrillary tangles, one of the hallmarks associated with Alzheimer’s.

Simply being prone to worry and tension can cause memory problems in old age, another recent study shows. Robert Wilson and his colleagues at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago evaluated the distress susceptibility of more than 1,000 elderly people by rating their agreement with state­ments such as “I am often tense and jittery.” Over a period of up to 12 years, volunteers who were anxiety-prone had a 40 percent higher risk of developing mild cognitive impairment than more easygoing individuals did. Mild cognitive impairment is thought to be a precursor for Alzheimer’s.

This article was originally published with the title Anxiety and Alzheimer's.

1 Comments

1. 1. diaskurian 09:33 AM 12/27/07

   Alzheimers is not probably a disease but an initiative of an individuals subconscious mind. We all have a past and that past is influenced by decisions, happenings, occurrences, events, possibly with or without our consent or conscious decision.
   
   During the period of growth from childhood to late adulthood these occurrences get registered into memory and the same faculty in manner of a Loop is activated repeatedly (which we might refer as Recall) as a result of probably millions of interactions in an individuals life, some even referring to déjà vu. While recall might get initiated, it necessarily does not insure invoking a good or bad feeling inside a persons mind, meaning some memories are better forgotten.
   
   The result of recall and further actions initiated by the individual to savor or dismiss the recall is the start for Alzheimers. There is enough proof of mind over matter and the control of mind and its functions by practice. This practice, to have an effect, takes time to mature into sturdy results i.e. probably middle-age in individuals.
   
   The question to be probed is whether we should investigate the power within an individual to SUB-CONCIOUSLY ERASE MEMORY or some tissue damage that leads to such erasure.
   
   Please notice that people who are inflicted with Alzheimers are not the real victims but people around them. They are probably happy in a dead memory, a stage they have probably achieved with much effort and inducement.
   
   Dias Joseph Kurian
   diaskurian@gmail.com
   India. +91 9811711206

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