Anxiety Could Be Linked To Alzheimer’s Disease, Study Suggests

A recent study shows that worsening symptoms of anxiety in adulthood may be linked to the development of Alzheimer’s disease.

While previous studies have shown depression and other mental disorders can be predictors of Alzheimer’s disease in its “pre-clinical” phase — when deposits of fibrillar amyloid and pathological tau build up in the brain, the neurological keys that eventually open the door to the disease — this is the first to examine anxiety specifically.

Researchers from Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston found that increased levels of the protein fragment amyloid beta — one of the key indicators of Alzheimer’s — could be linked to increased feelings of anxiety in individuals.

“Rather than just looking at depression as a total score, we looked at specific symptoms such as anxiety. When compared to other symptoms of depression such as sadness or loss of interest, anxiety symptoms increased over time in those with higher amyloid beta levels in the brain,” explains first author Dr. Nancy Donovan, a geriatric psychiatrist at Brigham and Women’s, in a release.

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