Frequent nightmares, or omen of dementia! The Lancet: Nightmares ≥ once a week increase the risk of dementia by 120%!

Dreaming is really a very interesting thing
.

In dreams, we can become superhumans who save the world, travel to the past or the future on a time machine, and realize many distant dreams
.
All of the above are beautiful dreams, and people often have some awakening nightmares, such as zero points on exams, plane crashes, trapped in mazes and so on
.
Of course, there are still many people who have "no dreams" at night, and when they open their eyes, they are at dawn
.

From "Zhou Gong Dream Interpretation" to Freud's "Analysis of Dreams", human beings have never stopped the pace
of "dream interpretation".
After all, a person's life has to dream at least 100,000 times, which translates to a lifetime of dreaming for up to 6 years! But what exactly do these dreams or nightmares mean? How does it relate to physical health?

Recently, the Distressing dreams, cognitive decline, and risk of dementia: A prospective study of three population-based cohorts in the journal eClinicalMedicine are based on three large prospective cohorts.
An association between nightmares and cognitive decline was found: higher frequency nightmares (1 or more times a week) were nearly 3-fold higher than the risk of cognitive decline in middle age, and the likelihood of developing dementia in older age was increased by 120%!

If you have nightmares on a regular basis, almost every week, excluding those who haven't done anything "bad" recently, it's best to do "dementia prevention preparedness" in advance, such as adhering to the following 5 healthy lifestyles (link above).

The researchers collected 605 middle-aged people (average 50.
3 years) and 2600 elderly people (average 82.
9 years) from three prospective cohorts of the American Middle-Aged (MIDUS) Study, the Osteoporotic Fracture Study (SOF) Study, and the Male Osteoporotic Fracture Study (MrOS) and followed them up to 13 years
.
The participants were healthy at the time of enrollment and did not experience cognitive abnormalities
.

Across the cohort, frequent nightmares were uncommon, with only about 6 percent reporting having nightmares at least once a week (6.
0 percent in middle age and 6.
9 percent in old age), while the vast majority (77 percent) of participants had not had "painful" dreams
in the month prior to the survey.
Compared to the latter, the former tends to be more depressed and anxious, have a greater probability of developing sleep problems, and have poorer
self-assessed physical health.
However, at baseline, there was no difference
in cognitive function between groups.

During the follow-up period, 14.
9 percent of the middle-aged participants experienced "cognitive decline.
"
Sure enough, there was indeed a significant association between frequent nightmares and cognitive decline, i.
e.
, in a fully adjusted model (adjusted for factors such as age, sex, sleep status, mental state, etc.
), higher-frequency nightmares were significantly linearly correlated with a higher risk of cognitive decline (p=0.
016).

Specifically, participants who had nightmares ≥ once a week had a 3.
99 times higher risk of cognitive decline than those who had hardly nightmares! The difference between the two is quite large!

Association between nightmare frequency and cognitive decline in the middle-aged cohort

In the elderly cohort, this link between "nightmares and cognitive decline" was further amplified, and the positive correlation between higher nightmare frequencies and higher risk of dementia onset was more pronounced (p<0.
001)! Older adults who had nightmares ≥ once a week had a 121% higher risk of developing dementia than those who did not have nightmares (p=0·002).

Interestingly, this association is stronger
in men.
Taking the elderly cohort as an example, older men who often have nightmares have a 5 times higher risk of developing dementia than those who do not have nightmares! In women, the risk increased by only 41 percent
.

Association between nightmare frequency and cognitive decline in the elderly cohort

There is a close link between frequent nightmares and cognitive decline and dementia, and it is very likely that dreams are a direct reflection
of physical health.

Dr Abidemi Otaiku, from the Centre for Human Brain Health at the University of Birmingham, stresses the fact that there are few
indicators of dementia risk in middle age.
This study confirms that detecting nightmare frequency may be an effective way to "identify people at high risk of developing dementia" and help doctors develop medical strategies in advance to prevent and delay the occurrence
of dementia.

Nothing more, nothing less
.
Previously, a study also published in the journal The Lancet, after more than 7 years of follow-up, also found an association between nightmares and Parkinson's: participants with frequent nightmares had a 2-fold risk of developing Parkinson's disease than the average person!

Therefore, dream interpretation is not "metaphysical.
"
In middle-aged and older people, nightmares are likely to be early signs of certain neurodegenerative diseases, and treating nightmares as early as possible may help prevent Parkinson's and dementia
.
Keep an eye on your dreams from time to time, perhaps they are the "warnings
" that the body is sending to you.