Depression Increases Risk of Alzheimer’s Disease.

Two new studies published this week indicate that people with depression are more likely to develop Alzheimers’s Disease later in life. This is change from the traditional thought that Alzheimer’s causes depression.

One study followed 917 retired Catholic priests and nuns. 190 of them developed Alzheimer’s disease and it appeared that those with symptoms of depression at the beginning of the study were more likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease.

Lead researcher Dr Robert Wilson, a neuropsychologist at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, says

“What we think it suggests is that depression truly is a risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease, and not simply a sign that the disease is developing.”

According to Wilson

“Our thinking is that depression somehow causes damage to part of the brain called the limbic system, and this is the part of the brain that Alzheimer’s disease preferentially attacks.”

A Dutch Study, also published Monday in Neurology, found that

“among the 134 of 503 people in the study who reported seeking help for depression, the risk of Alzheimer’s was 2.5 times higher than among those who were not depressed.”

But the researchers in this study are more cautious, saying

“We don’t know yet whether depression contributes to the development of Alzheimer’s disease or whether another unknown factor causes both depression and dementia.”

(source)