Depression in the elderly linked to Alzheimer's risk

A study, involving 371 patients with mild cognitive impairment, has found that those with depressive symptoms had higher levels of amyloid-beta, particularly in the frontal cortex and the anterior and posterior cingulate gyrus (both involved in mood disorders such as depression).

The findings suggest that late-life depression could be a major risk factor for developing Alzheimer's faster than others.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2014-06/sonm-dit060814.php

Brendel, M. et al. 2014. Subsyndromal late life depression is associated with amyloid accumulation in mild cognitive impairment. Presented at the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging's 2014 Annual Meeting, June 7, 2014, St. Louis, Missouri.

Related News

We know that the E4 variant of the APOE gene greatly increases the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease, but the reason is a little more mysterious. It has been thought that it makes it easier for amyloid plaques to form because it produces a protein that binds to amyloid beta.

I’ve talked before about the evidence linking diabetes to an increased risk of Alzheimer’s disease, but now a new study suggests that elevated blood sugar levels increase Alzheimer’s risk even in those without diabetes, even in those without ‘pre-diabetes’.

Evidence is accumulating that age-related cognitive decline is rooted in three related factors: processing speed slows down (because of

A study involving nearly 6,000 African American older adults has found those with a specific gene variant have almost double the risk of developing late-onset Alzheimer’s disease compared with African Americans who lack the variant.

Analysis of data from 418 older adults (70+) has found that carriers of the ‘Alzheimer’s gene’, APOEe4, were 58% more likely to develop mild cognitive impairment compared to non-carriers.

Analysis of eight studies on diet and stroke published between 1990 and 2012 has found that risk of first-time stroke dropped with every 7g increase in total daily fibre. That amount of fibre is contained in a bowl of wholewheat pasta plus two servings of fruit or vegetables.

A 2-year trial involving 251 patients with Parkinson's disease and early motor complications (mean age, 52 years; mean duration of disease, 7.5 years) has found that those given deep brain stimulation surgery significantly improved their quality of life, motor disability, activities of daily

Brain scans of 61 older adults (65-90), of whom 30 were cognitively healthy, 24 cognitively impaired and 7 diagnosed with dementia, found that, across all groups, both memory and executive function correlated negatively with brain infarcts, many of which had been clinically silent.

A small study of “Super Agers” has found a key difference between them and typical older adults: an unusually large

Preliminary findings from a small study show that older adults (68-91), after learning to use Facebook, performed about 25% better on tasks designed to measure their ability to continuously monitor and to quickly add or delete the contents of their

Pages

Subscribe to Latest newsSubscribe to Latest newsSubscribe to Latest health newsSubscribe to Latest news