Dementia risk reduces by socializing with friends in early 50s, 60s|Study

Last updated on September 26th, 2022 at 05:33 pm

Our risk of developing dementia later in life reduces if you become socially active with friends in your 50s and 60s, finds a study. The new retrospective study with an astonishing 28 years of follow-up was published on 2 August 2019 in the online journal PLOS Medicine¹ which reports that dementia risk decreases if we spend time with friends in early 50s and 60s.

The first of its kind, this cohort study suggest that the greater frequency of social contact at age 60 years lowers the risk of developing dementia (and that this association was linked to social contact with friends rather than relatives). What made researchers to conduct this 28 years long research? How actually the research was carried out and what was its outcome? Let’s try to find out in this interesting article.

Introduction

Researchers already knew that having less frequent social contact with others is associated with higher dementia risk, but these previous studies have a short follow-up. It does not give a clear picture and could mean that this could be due to social isolation being an early consequence, rather than a cause, of dementia. Scientists felt that there is a need to identify lifestyle factors that affect the risk of developing dementia so that prevention efforts can be appropriately targeted.

Interestingly there is another research “Mental health actually improves in seniors using social media“, which indirectly backs this latest study,

How the research was carried out

Researchers used the data from the Whitehall II prospective cohort to carry out 28 years long study. They used data from 10,228 participants of the Whitehall II study, aged 45 years on average at the beginning of the study.

Between the years 1985 and 2013, on six occasions, the participants were asked about their frequency of social contact with friends and relatives.

Participants were asked:

1. Do you have any friends or acquaintances you visit or who visit you? (Not necessarily the same person each time).
2. How many friends or acquaintances do you see once a month or more?.
3. Are there any relatives outside your household whom you regularly visit or who visit you? (Not necessarily the same person each time), and
4. How many relatives do you see once a month or more?

All questions had five possible response options: ‘Never/almost never’, ‘Once every few months’, ‘About monthly’, ‘About weekly’, and ‘Almost daily’ for questions 1 and 3; ‘None’, 1–2, 3–5, 6–10, and >10 for questions 2 and 4.

After this, participants also completed cognitive tests that were administered five times between 1997 and 2016 that measures three cognitive domains.

1. Verbal fluency was assessed by asking participants to write down as many words beginning with ‘S’ (testing phonemic fluency) and as many animals (semantic fluency) as possible during 1 minute.
2. Short-term verbal memory was assessed by presenting participants with 20 one- or two-syllable words at 2-second intervals, and participants then had 2 minutes to recall in writing as many words as possible.
3. Verbal and mathematical reasoning was assessed using the Alice Heim 4-I test.

Finally, scientist followed through electronic health records of all the participants until 2017 to ascertain dementia diagnosis.

What do researchers find?

They found that greater frequency of social contact at age 60 years was associated with a lower risk of developing dementia and that this association was linked to social contact with friends rather than relatives.

They also found that more frequent midlife social contact was associated with higher subsequent cognitive performance, with cognitive differences between those with high and low social contact frequency maintained during average 15 years of cognitive follow-up.

What do these findings mean?

The analysis suggests that more frequent social contact during early and midlife may build cognitive reserve, which is maintained and delays or prevents the clinical expression of dementia.

An alternative explanation for the findings is that early cognitive differences could affect individuals’ subsequent ability to establish and maintain social relationships, as well as increase susceptibility to later dementia.

Keep Reading: Dementia: Regular Nightmare in Middle-age can Seriously Affect Your Mental Health|Study