It’s healthy to have a half glass full approach to life according to researchers. That is to say, that negative people aren’t now just more likely to develop heart disease, but now dementia too.

Dementia is one of the fastest rising health conditions because we’re all now living for longer and so are more likely to develop it. Whilst some researchers are taking care of the physiological side of things to do with genetics, others are tending to the psychological influences that could increase our risk of getting dementia.

Researchers from Finland took 1,449 people aged over 70 and studied them for 8 years. They found that people who had high levels of cynical distrust were three times more likely to develop dementia than those with low levels. Examples of cynical distrust includes things like believing that you cannot trust anybody, or that everybody is out there looking out for number one and willing to do anything to get ahead.

Of course this is just a correlation, and not an absolute cause of dementia. But it does draw our minds to some of the ways in which this cynical behaviour could cause us to develop dementia. Perhaps cynicism causes us more anxiety and stress, and we might be less likely to socially engage with others if we don’t trust them as social engagement is a known risk factor for dementia. Perhaps we won’t visit the doctor when we have a problem, we won’t trust a gym with our direct debit information, or we might take our anxieties out on food and alcohol.

There’s too many reasons why being cynical might increase our risk of developing dementia, but it does provide an interesting point of how our personality and view of the world can directly impact our physical health.

Faye Prior (Researcher)

Source

Neuvonen et al., (2014). Late-life cynical distrust, risk of incident dementia, and mortality in a population-based cohort. Neurology, doi: 10.1212/WNL.0000000000000528.