JEALOUS NEUROTIC WOMEN MAY FACE HIGHER ALZHEIMERS RISK

Middle-aged women with a neurotic personality style and prolonged stress may have a heightened risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease, new research suggests.

Tracking 800 women over nearly four decades, Swedish scientists found that those who were most anxious, jealous and moody — which they defined as neurotic — and experienced long-standing stress had double the risk of developing Alzheimer’s compared to women scoring lowest in these traits.

“No other study has shown that [one style of] midlife personality increased the risk of Alzheimer’s disease over a period of nearly 40 years,” said study author Lena Johansson, a researcher at University of Gothenburg.

Outside experts cautioned, however, that the study results don’t prove that neuroticism triggers Alzheimer’s, but they do suggest an association between the two.

The study is published online Oct. 1 in the journal Neurology.

The most common type of dementia, Alzheimer’s disease causes profound memory loss and impairments in language, focus, judgment and visual perception, according to the Alzheimer’s Association. About 5.2 million Americans have been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, which is progressive, incurable and ultimately fatal.

Johansson said she believes the results would also be true for men. But study data — pulled from research that began in the 1960s — happened to include only women in an era when few medical studies focused on females.

In the new study, participants with an average age of 46 were tracked for 38 years and given memory tests and personality tests measuring their levels of neuroticism and extraversion (defined as being outgoing) and introversion (defined as reserved or shy).

Study authors defined neuroticism as being easily distressed and exhibiting personality traits such as anxiety, jealousy or moodiness. People with this personality style are more likely, they said, to express guilt, anger, envy, worry and depression.

The women were also asked if they had experienced any period of prolonged stress lasting one month or longer and to rate their stress on a scale from zero to five, which represented constant stress during the previous five years. Stress responses included nervousness, sleep disturbances, fearfulness, irritability and tension.

Being introverted or extroverted alone didn’t seem to affect dementia risk, but women who were both easily distressed and withdrawn (introverted) had the highest risk of Alzheimer’s among all women analyzed. One-quarter of them developed the disease, compared to only 13 percent of those considered outgoing (extroverted) and not easily distressed.

“We know genetics drives personality and disease itself, but there’s very little understanding of how personality drives disease,” said Dean Hartley, director of science initiatives for the Alzheimer’s Association, who was not involved in the research. “We need more data.”

Just how might personality influence the risk for dementia? By influencing a person’s behavior, lifestyle or stress reactions, all of which affect overall health, Johansson said. Also, prior research has indicated that neuroticism and stress are associated with changes in the hippocampus, a brain structure affected early in Alzheimer’s disease.

Hartley said the new research was limited in its ability to measure participants’ actual stress levels, since it did so by asking them a single question about stress every five years instead of measuring specific biochemical responses to stress.

“Future studies should examine . . . whether this [neurotic] group responds well to interventions,” Johansson said. “It remains to be seen whether neuroticism could be modified by medical treatment or through lifestyle changes.”

POMEGRANATE DRUG TO AID ALZHEIMERS PARKINSONS DISEASE

Dr Olumayokun Olajide's research will look to produce compound derivatives of punicalagin for a drug that would treat neuro-inflammation and slow down the progression of Alzheimer's disease

The onset of Alzheimer's disease can be slowed and some of its symptoms curbed by a natural compound that is found in pomegranate. Also, the painful inflammation that accompanies illnesses such as rheumatoid arthritis and Parkinson's disease could be reduced, according to the findings of a two-year project headed by University of Huddersfield scientist Dr Olumayokun Olajide, who specialises in the anti-inflammatory properties of natural products.

Now, a new phase of research can explore the development of drugs that will stem the development of dementias such as Alzheimer's, which affects some 800,000 people in the UK, with 163,000 new cases a year being diagnosed. Globally, there are at least 44.4 million dementia sufferers, with the numbers expected to soar.

The key breakthrough by Dr Olajide and his co-researchers is to demonstrate that punicalagin, which is a polyphenol -- a form of chemical compound -- found in pomegranate fruit, can inhibit inflammation in specialised brain cells known as micrologia. This inflammation leads to the destruction of more and more brain cells, making the condition of Alzheimer's sufferers progressively worse.

There is still no cure for the disease, but the punicalagin in pomegranate could prevent it or slow down its development.

Dr Olajide worked with co-researchers -- including four PhD students -- in the University of Huddersfield's Department of Pharmacy and with scientists at the University of Freiburg in Germany. The team used brain cells isolated from rats in order to test their findings. Now the research is published in the latest edition of the journalMolecular Nutrition & Food Research and Dr Olajide will start to disseminate his findings at academic conferences.

He is still working on the amounts of pomegranate that are required, in order to be effective.

"But we do know that regular intake and regular consumption of pomegranate has a lot of health benefits -- including prevention of neuro-inflammation related to dementia," he says, recommending juice products that are 100 per cent pomegranate, meaning that approximately 3.4 per cent will be punicalagin, the compound that slows down the progression of dementia.

Dr Olajide states that most of the anti-oxidant compounds are found in the outer skin of the pomegranate, not in the soft part of the fruit. And he adds that although this has yet to be scientifically evaluated, pomegranate will be useful in any condition for which inflammation -- not just neuro-inflammation -- is a factor, such as rheumatoid arthritis, Parkinson's and cancer.

The research continues and now Dr Olajide is collaborating with his University of Huddersfield colleague, the organic chemist Dr Karl Hemming. They will attempt to produce compound derivatives of punicalagin that could the basis of new, orally administered drugs that would treat neuro-inflammation.

Dr Olajide has been a Senior Lecturer at the University of Huddersfield for four years. His academic career includes a post as a Humboldt Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Centre for Drug Research at the University of Munich. His PhD was awarded from the University of Ibadan in his native Nigeria, after an investigation of the anti-inflammatory properties of natural products.

He attributes this area of research to his upbringing. "African mothers normally treat sick children with natural substances such as herbs. My mum certainly used a lot of those substances. And then I went on to study pharmacology!"