A conscientious effort
People who are purposeful, self-disciplined and scrupulous about doing what they think is right -- in other words, are conscientious -- appear less likely to suffer from Alzheimer’s disease.
Researchers performed neurological, cognitive and medical tests on about 1,000 healthy Catholic clergy, who apparently are no more or less conscientious than the rest of us. Volunteers rated themselves by responding to such items as, “I am a productive person who always gets the job done.” After 12 years, 176 people had developed Alzheimer’s disease. Those who had the highest ratings of conscientiousness had an 89% lower risk of showing symptoms of the disease than those with the lowest scores.
Though the trait may have protected participants from the consequences, it didn’t protect them from the disease process itself. Autopsies were done on the 324 people who died during the study period, and conscientiousness was not linked to a lower risk of the defining signs of the disease, brain plaques and tangles.
Yet those who scored higher on conscientiousness were less likely to have shown signs of diminished cognitive ability before their deaths. The study was published in this month’s issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry.
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