Association between Anxiety and Vascular Dementia Risk: New Evidence and an Updated Meta-Analysis

Abstract

The association between anxiety and vascular dementia (VaD) is unclear. We aimed to reliably estimate the association between anxiety and VaD risk using meta-analysis to pool new results from a large community-based cohort (Zaragoza Dementia and Depression (ZARADEMP) study) and results from previous studies. ZARADEMP participants (n = 4057) free of dementia were followed up on for up to 12 years. Cases and subcases of anxiety were determined at baseline. A panel of four psychiatrists diagnosed incident cases of VaD by consensus. We searched for similar studies published up to October 2019 using PubMed and Web of Science. Observational studies reporting associations between anxiety and VaD risk, and adjusting at least for age, were selected. Odds ratios (ORs) from each study were combined using fixed-effects models. In the ZARADEMP study, the risk of VaD was 1.41 times higher among individuals with anxiety (95% CI: 0.75–2.68) compared with non-cases (p = 0.288). Pooling this result with results from two previous studies yielded an OR of 1.65 (95% CI: 1.07–2.53; p = 0.022). These findings indicate that anxiety is associated with an increased risk of VaD. Taking into account that anxiety is commonly observed in the elderly, treating and preventing it might reduce the prevalence and incidence of VaD. However, whether anxiety is a cause of a prodrome of VaD is still unknown, and future research is needed to clarify this.

The use of nomogram for detecting mild cognitive impairment in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus

“… 63 Additionally, the role of anxiety in the risk of dementia has been identified in some meta‐analyses. 64 , 65 Consistently, this study found that anxiety and depression were both independently associated with a higher risk of MCI in T2DM patients, highlighting the importance of regular screening for anxiety and depression in T2DM patients to maintain cognitive function.…”

Psychosocial factors and hippocampal subfields: The Medea‐7T study

“…However, regarding some psychosocial factors, such as social support, studies have mostly been limited to child or adolescent samples (Albaugh et al, 2017;Dahmen et al, 2018;Keresztes et al, 2020;Luby et al, 2019;Malhi et al, 2019;Malhi et al, 2020) and focused on total hippocampal volume rather than exploring the differential effect within subfields (Albaugh et al, 2017;Banning et al, 2020;Binnewies et al, 2021;Dahmen et al, 2018;Dannlowski et al, 2012;Gerritsen, van Velzen, et al, 2015;Keresztes et al, 2020;Malhi et al, 2019;Malhi et al, 2020). Further, these psychosocial factors, such as low social support (Miyaguni et al, 2021;Penninkilampi et al, 2018), depression (Byers & Yaffe, 2011;Diniz et al, 2013), anxiety (Kuring et al, 2020;Santabárbara et al, 2020), and childhood maltreatment (Radford et al, 2017), have been associated with an increased risk for incident dementia, which could possibly be mediated by hippocampal volumes (Gruenewald et al, 2020;Linnemann & Lang, 2020;Mah et al, 2016). Therefore, by understanding the role psychosocial factors have on regions of the hippocampus in an adult population, we can better understand how these factors may contribute to the development of neurodegenerative diseases.…”

Sustained negative mental health outcomes among healthcare workers over the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic: a prospective cohort study

“…The COVID-19 pandemic outbreak has had substantial mental health impact on healthcare workers (HCWs), largely due to increases in healthcare capacity requirements driving job redeployments and extended working hours in combination with very high risk of contagion and death. Estimates from cross-sectional studies conducted during the initial pandemic outbreak suggest that between 25 and 50% of HCWs may have experienced clinically significant symptoms of anxiety or depression (1)(2)(3)(4)(5)(6)(7) and posttraumatic stress (1,3,7).…”