by Elena Popova/Moment RF/Getty Images
Getting aerobic exercise is one of 12 factors that could help reduce your risk of developing depression later in life, a new study suggests.
Get inspired by a weekly summary of how to live well, made easy. Sign up for CNN’s Life, But Better newsletter to get insights and tools designed to improve your well-being.
CNN
—
Scientists announced in December the successful creation of the Brain Care Score, a tool to assess the risk of dementia or stroke without medical intervention.
This score, which also helps patients and doctors identify beneficial lifestyle changes, may now also be able to predict the risks of developing depression later in life, according to a new study.
The 21-point Brain Health Score (BCS) assesses a person’s status across 12 health-related factors, including physical, lifestyle and socio-emotional aspects of health. A higher BCS score is associated with a lower risk of developing depression in later life, defined as age 60 or older, according to the study published Tuesday in the journal Frontiers in Psychiatry.
“The Brain Care Score is a simple tool designed to help anyone in the world answer the question, ‘What can I do to better care for my brain?’” study author Dr. Jonathan Rosand, co-founder of the McCance Center for Brain Health at Massachusetts General Hospital and lead developer of the BCS, said in a press release.
“This study provides compelling evidence that increasing your BCS not only may make your brain healthier and more resistant to diseases like dementia and stroke, but it also offers hope for protection against depression,” added Rosand, a professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School in Boston.
The four physical components of the BCS are blood pressure, cholesterol, hemoglobin A1c, and body mass index, while the five lifestyle factors are nutrition, alcohol consumption, aerobic activity, sleep, and smoking. The three socio-emotional aspects concern relationships, stress management, and meaning in life. The higher a participant’s score, the lower their risk of brain disease.
Up to a third or more of people over 60 suffer from depression in old age, the risk of which may be influenced by lifestyle habits, the authors said.
The team used health data from more than 350,000 people recruited to the UK Biobank study between 2006 and 2010 and who took part in follow-up assessments on three occasions over the following decade. The UK Biobank study followed the health of more than 500,000 people, typically aged 40 to 69, in the UK for at least 10 years.
For participants in the new study, each positive five-point difference in their BCS score was associated with a 33% lower risk of late-life depression, as well as a 27% lower composite risk of late-life depression, dementia and stroke over an average 13-year follow-up period.
“People think of the skull as a separate part of the brain, as if the brain were an individual organ,” said Dr. Richard Isaacson, a preventive neurologist at the Florida Institute for Neurodegenerative Diseases, who was not involved in the study. “But it’s clear from this study and others that if we can stay physically active, eat a healthy diet, reduce our tobacco and alcohol use, maintain a healthy weight and stay socially engaged, there will be downstream benefits — not just on vascular health and dementia, but also on mental and emotional health.”
The authors also found a substantial link between baseline BCS and depression risk in people under 50, which they considered surprising since they expected that only older adults might have the neurodegenerative and inflammatory changes that can lead to depression, dementia, and stroke.
But the association among young adults fits the life trajectory of other age-associated diseases, Isaacson said.
“In our Alzheimer’s prevention clinic, we see patients who are 25 and older,” Isaacson said. “This finding doesn’t surprise me because there are risk factors for dementia in early life, in middle life and in late life. With Alzheimer’s disease, for example, the pathology starts in the brain decades before the symptoms of memory loss. If someone is 65 and diagnosed with dementia, that means the disease started in their brain between the ages of 35 and 45.”
The process is similar to a heart attack or stroke that occurs in an older person after having high cholesterol in their 30s, he added. So the findings highlight the importance of taking care of your brain throughout your life.
“There is still much to be learned about the mechanisms that contribute to depression, dementia and stroke in later life,” said Dr. Sanjula Singh, first author of the study and a lecturer at the McCance Center for Brain Health, in a press release. “Our findings underscore the importance of taking a holistic view of the brain to better understand the underlying connections between different brain diseases.”
If you’re an older adult suffering from depression, know that being open and seeking care is essential, Isaacson said.
“Older generations may have been prepared to fight, thinking it was a matter of mind over matter,” Isaacson said. But that’s not always the case, he added, so try to accept that you’re not feeling well and talk to your doctor about treatment options such as therapy or antidepressants.
The latter may have an additional benefit to your cognitive function as you age, as some early research has begun to indicate that certain antidepressants, such as escitalopram, may slow the buildup of beta-amyloid protein in the brain, Isaacson added. High levels of amyloid are a hallmark sign of Alzheimer’s disease.
