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Your Dreams May Tell If You’re Going To Develop Dementia Or Parkinson’s Disease In Future

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Study Decodes The Content Of Dreams That Could Help Predict Dementia And Parkinson’s Disease Risk ‘Very Early’

People generally agree that different things can affect our health at different times in our lives. The chance of developing certain illnesses may be increased by certain lifestyle choices, such as your diet and level of activity. According to recent research, the kinds of dreams you have as a youngster may potentially have an impact on your future health.

According to a study that was published in The Lancet, experiencing “distressing” nightmares may increase your risk of developing dementia or Parkinson’s disease in later life.

More specifically, children who had bad dreams or night terrors often were 85 percent more likely to have cognitive problems or Parkinson’s by the age of 50.

The research examined 1958 British Birth Cohort Study data.

The moms of the kids provided information about upsetting nightmares when the kids were seven (in 1965) and 11 years old (in 1969).

A cognitive evaluation and a medical diagnostic, respectively, were used to evaluate cognitive impairment and Parkinson’s disease at age 50 (in 2008).

Around the age of 50, 267 (3.8 percent) of the 6,991 kids who were a part of the research began to experience cognitive impairment or Parkinson’s disease.

After controlling for other factors, the probability of developing cognitive impairment or Parkinson’s disease by age 50 was shown to increase linearly among those who reported experiencing more disturbing nightmares as children.

“Compared with children who never had distressing dreams (no time point),” according to the study, “children who had persistent distressing dreams (two time points) had an 85 percent increased risk of developing cognitive impairment or Parkinson’s disease by age 50.”

The results follow earlier research that revealed persons who have disturbing dreams on a weekly basis had more than twice as high a chance of dementia or Parkinson’s disease progression as those who do not.

Also, there is evidence that experiencing regular distressing dreams in middle adulthood may raise the likelihood of developing cognitive impairment or Parkinson’s disease decades later, according to the research.

The authors write, “Given that distressing dream frequency is a relatively stable trait from early childhood to middle adulthood, this raises the possibility that having regular distressing dreams as a child, may be a very early indicator of dementia and Parkinson’s disease risk.”

The researchers speculated that there may be three distinct explanations for the connection between dreaming and the aforementioned disorders.

First, some people may have upsetting dreams as a precursor of age-related neurological disorders including Parkinson’s, dementia with Lewy bodies, or Alzheimer’s disease.

This is because the loss of neuronal connections in the right frontal brain areas responsible for dampening unpleasant emotions during REM sleep causes these conditions.

According to the second hypothesis, people may be predisposed genetically to dementia, Parkinson’s disease, and traumatic nightmares.

The third possibility is that unsettling dreams may be a “causal” risk factor for Parkinson’s disease and cognitive decline.

Researchers believe their discoveries may provide a roadmap for how to treat neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson’s and dementia in the future.

According to the authors, the findings of the study “provides evidence for the first time that having distressing dreams during childhood, may be associated with an increased risk of developing cognitive impairment or Parkinson’s during adulthood.”

Additionally, these results suggest that nightmares may be an independent risk factor for neurodegeneration.

“If these results are found to be true in other studies and the link is proven to be a cause, treating distressing dreams early “could become a primary prevention strategy for dementia and Parkinson’s disease.”

Image Credit: Getty

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