Stress

Stress is a common emotion experienced by everyday people. However, reducing stress in Alzheimer’s disease patients have shown to slow down the progression of the illness. The main stress hormone is cortisol. (1,2) High cortisol levels found in patients during a cross sectional study showed that an increased cortisol exacerbated the Alzheimer's pathology. (1) The review of Literature from Frontiers in Aging neuroscience, noted that increased cortisol levels led to greater clinical features of Alzheimer’s disease in Alzheimer’s patients. It is known that stress can suppress the immune system, and can lead to a patient feeling worse than before. (3) The “Vicious Cycle of Stress” portrays how stress drives the disease and the disease will produce exacerbated symptoms in patients which causes the patient more stress, and the cycle repeats. (3) “Early stage AD-related dementia is associated with elevated Cort and anxiety-related neuropsychiatric conditions that correlate with increased disease risk...Similar correlations have been reported between late-life anxiety/depression and the incidence of dementia.” Over the course of 50 years, 13,000 patients were tracked and analyzed. Those who experienced a late-life depression had 2 times the risks of diagnosis of dementia. High stress is factor to depression, so making sure that stress is maintained will help physically and emotionally.