If you don’t like old people, you’re at a higher risk for Alzheimer’s, study says

Call it irony or call it karma, a new study has found people who hold negative stereotypes about old people are at higher risk for Alzheimer’s disease.
The study, published in the journal Psychology and Aging, is based on interviews conducted with people years before some of them developed the degenerative disease, and is the first to connect attitude with Alzheimer’s.
“We believe it is the stress generated by the negative beliefs about aging that individuals sometimes internalize from society that can result in pathological brain changes,” study author Becca Levy, associate professor of public health at Yale, said in a statement.
“Although the findings are concerning, it is encouraging to realize that these negative beliefs about aging can be mitigated and positive beliefs about aging can be reinforced, so that the adverse impact is not inevitable.”
Negativity led to decrease in hippocampus volume
The study’s conclusion is based on the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging, which included volunteer interviews and brain imaging via MRIs. The scientists learned that volunteers who held more adverse beliefs around aging exhibited a greater decrease in the volume of the hippocampus—an element of the brain essential to memory. Decreased hippocampus volume is a signal of Alzheimer’s disease.
The scientists then used brain autopsies to look at two other indicators of Alzheimer’s disease: amyloid plaques, which are protein clumps that accumulate between brain cells; and neurofibrillary tangles, which are twisted lengths of protein that accumulate within brain cells.
Volunteers holding more unfavorable beliefs regarding aging had a noticeably greater amount of plaques and tangles. Stereotypes about the elderly were assessed an average of 28 years prior to the plaques and tangles, researchers said.
The new study adds to previous research conducted by Levy that connected negative stereotypes to elevated heart rate and blood pressure when a person talks about stressful events in their life. On the other hand, positive stereotypes have been connected to lowered stress levels.
“Children as young as 4 take in the stereotypes of their culture,” Levy said, according to the Miami Herald. “It would be great to start quite young, in kindergarten or even pre-K, to start reinforcing positive stereotypes, bringing older role models into classrooms.”
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