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Does pessimism about old age make people more vulnerable to serious conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease? A new report published in the journal Psychology and Aging suggests that it can.
Conducted by a team of researchers led by Becca R. Levy of Yale University, the report describes two research studies investigating age stereotypes in healthy adults and how they can trigger brain abnormalities associated with Alzheimer’s disease over time. According to the researchers, how we view aging is often shaped by cultural beliefs as well as personal experiences with elderly people throughout our lives. Negative beliefs about aging can lead to greater stress and may affect how the body copes with the physical and mental changes that come with age.
Previous research has shown that people with negative attitudes about aging are more prone to developing serious health problems later in life than their more positive-minded counterparts. Cardiovascular problems and high blood pressure are just some of the conditions that appear to be linked to greater pessimism about old age. On the other hand, having a more positive view about aging can have a protective benefit that helps people stay mentally and physically active for as long as their health allows.
But what about the neurological changes linked to dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease? Brain researchers have identified key biomarkers that seem to be linked to the amount of cumulative stress people experience over their lifespan. These biomarkers can include a buildup of amyloid plaques and tangles in the brain as well as shrinkage of critical parts of the brain, specifically the hippocampus. Studies of people who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) suggests that chronic stress can lead to reduced hippocampal volume. Not surprisingly, people with negative stereotypes about aging are also much more vulnerable to developing PTSD following a traumatic experience.
To study how age stereotypes can affect the brain, Becca Levy and her co-researchers used subjects taking part in the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging (BLSA). Started in 1958, the BLSA is America's longest running study of human aging and has followed more than a thousand participants across decades to measure changes in physical and mental development as they grew older. Along with different psychological inventories, participants also complete a specialized questionnaire measuring general attitudes towards older adults (with items such as “Old people are absent-minded," etc.). Other tests given include psychometric tests of well-being, self-rated health, and a test of visual memory.
In their first study, Levy and her team used fifty-two healthy participants who received up to ten yearly magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) assessments to measure changes in hippocampal volume over time. All of the participants were over the age of sixty at the time of their first scan (average age was 68.54) with an average of twenty-five years from the time they first completed the questionnaire on age stereotypes to when they received their first scan.
As expected, participants who reported strong negative age stereotypes showed a much steeper decline in hippocampal volume than participants with more positive views about aging. Even when differences in age, sex, and educational history were taken into account, the negative-age-stereotype group showed three times the rate of decline than the positive group. People with negative age stereotypes tended to show the same decline in three years that participants with more positive age stereotypes showed in nine years.
For the second study, which involved measuring the link between amyloid plaque buildup and age stereotypes, seventy-four BLSA participants agreed to a brain autopsy after their death and had taken part in all other aspects of the study, including completing the same questionnaires as in the first study. Average age at the time of autopsy was 88.75 with an average of 28 years between the time of first assessment and time of death. Investigators at the Johns Hopkins Alzheimer's Disease Research Center evaluated the brains for amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles in five separate brain regions that’d make were then rated as preclinical, moderate, or severe depending on degree of pathology.
Results showed that participants holding negative age stereotypes at the time they were first assessed showed significantly greater buildup of amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles in five key brain regions than participants who reported more positive views about aging. Even when other factors such as gender, age, self-rated health, and level of education were taken into account, the link between age stereotypes and brain pathology remained extremely strong.
What do the results of these two studies tell us? Despite the difference in average age between participants in the two studies, the use of separate biomarkers strongly suggests that negative age stereotypes can have a powerful impact on brain development as people grow older. While more research will be needed to rule out other factors that may explain these results, changing attitudes about aging may well prove to be as important as other health factors such as diet and exercise in helping people stay mentally active for as long as possible.
The results of this study may also help explain why the likelihood of being diagnosed with Alzheimers's disease varies so much in countries around the world. For example, older adults in the United States are five times more likely to be diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease than in India. Though researchers are investigating other factors, including diet, cultural differences in beliefs about aging may play a role as well. Negative stereotypes are much more common in the United States than they are in India (which tends to venerate the elderly). Similar differences can be found in other Asian nations as well.
As the Baby Boom generation continues to grow older, we are likely to see far more cases of Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia in future. Identifying lifestyle factors that can help protect older adults well into extreme old age is probably more important than ever.
Take a hard look at your own attitudes about aging. Your future health may depend on it.
