Getting married is a personal decision, but in light of the latest study led by psychiatrist Andrew Sommerlad of University College London, UK, there could be significant cognitive consequences for those who choose to remain single for the rest of their lives.
The analysis gathered health data from 15 studies with more than 800,000 participants from the US, Europe, South America and Asia, finding that people who never marry are at dramatically higher risk of developing dementia.
By focusing on the marital status of the cohort of 812,047 people, the researchers found that lifetime singles were 42% more likely to develop dementia overall than married people, after factoring in factors such as age and age. sex.
Widowers were also at higher risk: 20% more likely to develop this mental faculties disorder, compared to people who were still married and had not lost their partner during the follow-up period of the studies.
Interestingly, the divorced did not show a greater association with dementia, but this could be due to the fewer number of divorced people who participated in the research.
It is not the fact of getting married that confers some kind of protective benefit to cognitive health, but everything that married life entails.
“Married people tend to have healthier lifestyles and are more socially engaged, which may explain why they are less likely to develop dementia,” says Sommerland.
The fact that it is an observational study means that we cannot draw firm conclusions regarding causality, but if the lifestyle hypothesis is correct, the findings are consistent with other studies that analyze the impact of social and family engagement in our global mindset and physical health.
And it is that greater social interaction and not social isolation or loneliness carry a lower risk of dementia
Reasons
The reasons could be many. In addition to the manifest happiness and exhilarating life with a partner can be, married life comes with other not-so-obvious benefits.
“People who are married tend to be better off, a factor that is closely intertwined with many aspects of our health,” says Laura Phipps of Alzheimer’s Research UK , who was not involved in the study.
“Spouses can help promote healthy habits, take care of their partner’s health, and provide important social support.”
Regardless of the causes, the researchers also found that the protective benefit of marriage could be something that diminishes over time , since in the latest studies analyzed, the risk of developing dementia from being single was only 24%, a figure significantly lower than that of the general conclusion of the study.
Finding out why this is changing is another puzzle that scientists will need to investigate in the future.
“We hope that our findings can be applied to support dementia prevention among single people, as maintaining physical health and ensuring mental stimulation through social engagement among unmarried older people can be beneficial,” concludes Sommerlad.
Referencia: Marriage and risk of dementia: systematic review and meta-analysis of observational studies. Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/jnnp-2017-316274
