Driven people may avoid Alzheimer’s:
The new findings, appearing in Monday’s Archives of General Psychiatry, come from an analysis of personality tests and medical exams of 997 older Catholic priests, nuns and brothers who participated in the Religious Orders Study.At the start of the study, none of the participants showed signs of dementia. The average age was 75. Everyone took tests, including a standard personality test, then the researchers tracked them for 12 years, testing yearly for cognitive decline and dementia. Brain autopsies were performed on most of those who died.
During the 12 years, 176 people developed Alzheimer’s disease. Those with the highest scores for a personality trait called “conscientiousness” at the start of the study had an 89 percent lower risk of developing Alzheimer’s compared to people with the lowest scores for that personality trait.
The conscientiousness scores were based on how people rated themselves, on a scale of 0 to 4, on how much they agreed with statements such as: “I work hard to accomplish my goals,” “I strive for excellence in everything I do,” “I keep my belongings clean and neat” and “I’m pretty good about pacing myself so as to get things done on time.”
When the researchers took into account a combination of risk factors, including smoking, inactivity and limited social connections, they still found that the dutiful people had a 54 percent lower risk of Alzheimer’s compared to people with the lowest scores for conscientiousness.
Could lower conscientiousness merely be an early sign of Alzheimer’s? The researchers think not. At the start of the study, the less conscientious people were no more likely to have lower mental abilities or more memory problems than the most dutiful people in the study.