The Links Between Stress And Dementia Come From The Toll That Stress Takes On The Brain.

Unfortunately, chronic stress isn’t the only factor that we have to take into consideration.

Stress is something that we don’t really like to have too much of. It is said about stress that:

Stress is a feeling of emotional or physical tension. It can come from any event or thought that makes you feel frustrated, angry, or nervous.

Stress is your body’s reaction to a challenge or demand. In short bursts, stress can be positive, such as when it helps you avoid danger or meet a deadline. But when stress lasts for a long time, it may harm your health.

And we can easily get frustrated, angry or nervous from so many different stressors.

We see people get stressed out by working in high pressure environments. We see other people get stressed out by having to raise difficult children. We see even more people get stressed out by having to deal with unpleasant situations in their lives — some people may be so affected by it that they do develop post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

While some stress may be helpful in getting us to clear deadlines or avoid danger, being in a situation of constant stress is not going to be helpful. It actually puts one in a state of hypervigilance:

While hypervigilance isn’t a diagnosis, it is a symptom that can show up as a part of a variety of other mental health conditions. Hypervigilance is related to anxiety. When you feel particularly on guard, nervous, or worried about a situation or event, you may experience a heightened level of awareness or arousal.

Hypervigilance — the elevated state of constantly assessing potential threats around you — is often the result of a trauma. People who have been in combat, have survived abuse, or have posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) can exhibit hypervigilance.

Unfortunately, chronic stress will be one of the four ways that can help to accelerate the decline of one’s health. Any stress that we do experience physically, emotionally or mentally will be translated into a biochemical response within the body:

Because our adrenal glands end upreleasing elevated amounts of the epinephrine (adrenaline) and norepinephrine (noradrenaline) hormones into our blood.

These hormones are responsible for the fight-or-flight response that we do experience in times of stress. These hormones are also able to activate the pro-inflammatory nuclear factor kappa B (NF-κB) pathway in our body’s cells, which then start to produce more pro-inflammatory cytokines than necessary.

So of course, it isn’t surprising to see that NF-κB is a major player in PTSD, even. Unfortunately, we can already see that war veterans who were diagnosed with PTSD were twice more likely to develop dementia than those who did not have PTSD.

B

d carbohydrates does amplify the inflammatory response:

As does binge drinking alcohol:

In other words: we can be eating or drinking ourselves to further harm in the years to come.

Eating right is one of the oft-overlooked facets of stress relief. We may crave comfort foods such as ice cream as a short term relief, but an addiction to ice cream may only accelerate one’s mental health decline more rapidly.

How the inflammation affects our brain in the long term.

Our brain is well insulated from the rest of the body via this protective filter known as the blood-brain barrier (BBB). The BBB is described by this article as:

The blood vessels that vascularize the central nervous system (CNS) possess unique properties, termed the blood–brain barrier, which allow these vessels to tightly regulate the movement of ions, molecules, and cells between the blood and the brain. This precise control of CNS homeostasis allows for proper neuronal function and also protects the neural tissue from toxins and pathogens, and alterations of these barrier properties are an important component of pathology and progression of different neurological diseases.

The BBB provides the brain an excellent level of protection from toxins and pathogens. We don’t want some pesky infectious virus or bacteria to enter our body during an infection and outright kill off the neurons in our brain that easily, do we?

Hence, the BBB provides that layer of defence against such critters. It also regulates the movement of different molecules between the blood and the brain — some molecules are allowed to sneak through the BBB, while others don’t.

Unfortunately, defences don’t last long if we keep on pulverising or attacking them, do they? Much like how a person wielding an axe can fell a tree with repeated chopping motions against the tree trunk, so can our BBB be felled.

Our BBB can be felled by pro-inflammatory cytokines, which NF-κB promotes the production of. Both TNF-α and interleukin 1-beta (IL-1β) are known to increase the permeability of the BBB — meaning that the filtering capability of the BBB is reduced.

Any noxious components in the blood that would have been kept out of the brain with a well functioning BBB can be let into the brain with a malfunctioning BBB, which can then trigger the microglial cells in the brain to produce more of the pro-inflammatory cytokines that then induce neuronal apoptosis.

Of course, an increased level of pro-inflammatory cytokines such as TNF-α in the brain can induce the neurons in the brain to undergo apoptosis (commit suicide).

A neuron in our brain “is the basic working unit of the brain, a specialized cell designed to transmit information to other nerve cells, muscle, or gland cells.” It is also the case that “neurons stop reproducing shortly after birth. Generally, when neurons die they are not replaced, although neurogenesis, or the formation of new nerve cells, does occur in some parts of the brain.”

Therefore, if there is a sufficent inflammatory signal intensity to induce sufficient neuronal apoptosis to a point where our cognitive functions take a hit — we’d have the symptoms of degenerative dementia staring at us directly in the face, no?

The moral of the story, therefore, is that chronic stress helps to accelerate the onset of neurodegenerative disorders.

We’d therefore have to be very careful about how we live — whether in our response to stress or even in putting ourselves in situations that warrant extra stress. De-compression is always necessary — I’m thankful for international borders opening up such that international travel can happen again!

Also, do feel free to refer to 12 Brain Boosting Nutrients And How They Work For Supporting Brain Health to see how our diet can support healthy brain functions!

Joel Yong, Ph.D., is a biochemical engineer/scientist, an educator and a writer. He has authored 5 ebooks (available on Amazon.com in Kindle format) and co-authored 6 journal articles in internationally peer-reviewed scientific journals. His main focus is on crafting strategies to support optimal biochemical functions in the human body at https://thethinkingscientist.substack.com.