Today, nearly 900,000 people suffer from Alzheimer's disease in France and this figure should reach 1.3 million in 2020, according to Inserm estimates. According to a study by the University of Florida Medicine published in the journal "The EMBO Journal", stress is one of the pathologies that could cause it and accelerate it.
According to the researchers, stress could indeed be one of the main factors in the release of adrenocorticotropic hormone (CRF), which accelerates the production of beta-amyloid proteins. However, the latter are one of the main causes of Alzheimer's disease, when they are present in excess in the brain*.
In 2010, Swedish researchers from the University of Gothenburg had already published a study in the journal Brain along these lines. After studying the psychological and psychiatric state of 1415 Swedish women living in Gothenburg for 35 years, they came to the conclusion that the risk of developing dementia after a period of stress was 65% higher than in absence. of stress.
One more reason to take a breather!
*Alzheimer’s disease is associated with two types of lesions. It may be due to excessive production of the beta-amyloid protein in the brain (normally, they are naturally eliminated, but when there are too many of them, they aggregate and damage the neurons). Another mechanism involved:the stiffening of neurons, due to the dysfunction of another protein (tau, its name), which also causes cognitive damage.
