Myth: If You Have The Gene for Dementia, You’ll Get Dementia

You are basically toast; you are going to get it, and you might as well accept it. 

NO, NO, NO, I say!! 

Fresh off the press research headed by Dr. Becca R. Levy at Yale studied more than four thousand older,
dementia-free folks, and she found that while one quarter of the US population carries the gene (APOEe4), which is one of the strongest risk factors for dementia, less than half of APOEe4 carriers develop dementia.

Billion dollar question: Why? 

These are times when I love that various social sciences come together to form a beautiful circle. The answer: having a positive attitude not only staves off developing dementia, it seems to prevent it. 

Direct from the research paper: “Considerable research has found that positive age beliefs predict better cognitive performance; whereas, negative age beliefs predict worse cognitive performance. The pattern
of age beliefs predicting cognition has been supported by cross-cultural, experimental, and longitudinal studies, together with three meta-analyses. Further, a recent study found that negative age beliefs predicted the development of Alzheimer’s disease biomarkers.”

This is worth breaking out the bubbly for AND adopting a new attitude this red-hot minute!

Until next time… Be Vibrant!