Health aNd Fitness Guide

People who are purposeful, self-disciplined and scrupulous — or rather conscientious — appear less likely to suffer from Alzheimer’s disease. Researchers performed neurological, cognitive and medical tests on about 1,000 healthy Catholic clergy. Volunteers rated themselves by responding to items like, “I am a productive person who always gets the job done.” After 12 years, 176 people have developed Alzheimer’s disease. Those who had the highest ratings of conscientiousness had 89 per cent lower risk of showing symptoms of the disease than those with the lowest scores. The trait might have protected participants from the consequences, but it did not protect them from the disease process. Autopsies on 324 people who died during the study-period showed that 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 death.