Married people less likely to develop Alzheimer's

NEW YORK, Dec 30 1999 (Reuters Health) -- People who never marry are more likely to develop Alzheimer's disease or another form of dementia than people who do marry, a new study suggests.

Marriage appears to offer some sort of protection even for individuals whose spouse has died, according to a report in the December issue of Neurology.

The findings confirm that never-married individuals have "a twofold increase for the risk of dementia and almost a threefold increase for the risk of Alzheimer's disease," report Dr. Catherine Helmer, from Bordeaux University in France.

In their study of more than 2,800 people, 190 developed some type of dementia -- most often Alzheimer's disease -- over a 5-year period. Of those, 4.4% were married or cohabitating, 5.1% were separated or divorced, 9.4% were widows and widowers, and 12.9% had never married.

The authors note that there were too few people in the study to determine the Alzheimer's disease risk for those who were separated or divorced. However, it appeared that widowed individuals had the same risk of developing dementia as married people.

It's possible that people who never marry may have risk factors for Alzheimer's disease that were not examined in the study, such as malnutrition, according to the report.

Additionally, the individuals who never married could have some personality trait or behaviour that accounts for both their single status and their increased risk of dementia, the researchers speculate.

"If such an association between never-married individuals and Alzheimer's disease can be confirmed," the authors write, "it should be taken into consideration in the evaluation of risk of Alzheimer's disease.