Another Way to Avoid Alzheimer’s

The risk factors for Alzheimer’s are fairly well known; they include age, heredity, gender, lifestyle, and education. There’s a new one – a personality that includes a poor degree of conscientiousness. This has been revealed in a study just reported in the Archives of General Psychiatry. The Religious Orders Study, conducted by Rush University scientists in Chicago , has followed the health of almost 1000 Catholic nuns, priests, and brothers for 12 years. At baseline, they completed a standard 12-point personality measure of conscientiousness. Those that died underwent a pathology exam of their brains, looking for evidence of Alzheimer’s.

During the 12 years 176 of the subjects developed Alzheimer’s. After adjusting for age, sex, and education, a higher conscientiousness score (the top 10%) was found to be linked with an 89% reduction in the risk of getting Alzheimer’s, compared with a low score (the bottom 10%). High conscientiousness scores were also linked with a lowered risk of cognitive impairment.

These results show that those who are conscientious and self-disciplined are less likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease. Conscientiousness seems to be open to improvement through practice, training and study. Maybe there’s hope for some of us, if we start early enough . . .