Curmudgeons, cranks and misanthropes beware: Dementia is more likely

http://touch.latimes.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-80358438/

OK, it probably is a plot. But a new study finds that if you're distrustful and cynical of other peoples' motives in your elder years, you're more likely to develop dementia. And that's just the latest bad news for grumpy old men and women: Past research has found that having an attitude of cynical distrust, even among younger adults, is linked to increased risk of heart attack, heart disease and earlier death.

The most recent findings, published this week in the journal Neurology, emerged after researchers studied and followed 1,240 Finns who were between the ages of 65 and 79 in 1997. The researchers assessed each participant's cognitive state and mental function in 1998 and then again in 2005. They measured participants' levels of cynicism at the outset by asking each to declare how much they agreed or disagreed with such assertions as "most people will lie to get ahead," "people will use somewhat unfair reasons to gain profit or advantage rather than lose it," and "no one cares much what happens to you."

The elderly Finns that ranked in the top one-third of cynics were between two and three times as likely to develop dementia over roughly eight years than those whose distrustful cynicism scores put them in the lower two-thirds of the group. Even after the clinically depressed (whose disorder makes them highly likely to embrace cynical and distrustful views) were taken out of the equation, researchers found that the curmudgeonly were nearly three times likelier than more trusting souls to develop problems of memory, reasoning and planning

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