Reduced hemoglobin levels may cause dementia
Last reviewed: 23.04.2024
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Employees of the University of California (USA) found that too low a level of hemoglobin can cause senile dementia. Recent studies related to the effect of hemoglobin in the blood have shown that the substance is capable of influencing brain activity and the activity of the nervous system.
The goal of the studies conducted by American neurologists was the dependence between anemia and senile dementia.
Senile dementia is an acquired condition, also called senile dementia, and in the people - simply senile dementia. More often, senile dementia is associated with a significant decrease in cognitive and intellectual activity, loss of acquired knowledge and skills, and difficulties in mastering new ones. Most often, acquired dementia is associated with age and is the result of damage to the brain and nervous system.
American scientists, in research on the causes of dementia acquired with age, found that there is a link between senile dementia and a disease such as anemia. Anemia (anemia) is a group of common diseases, the common sign of which is the too low level of hemoglobin in the blood. It is worth noting that anemia is not one specific disease, but rather a symptom that can be present in many diseases. Medicine knows several ways of developing anemia: development due to disruption of hemoglobin formation processes, development due to the loss of existing red blood cells (red blood cells) and development due to self-destruction of red blood cells at the cellular level.
The main objective of the study, conducted at the University of California, was to study the relationship between the development of cyanone dementia and a decreased level of hemoglobin in the blood. The subject of the study was people aged about 65 years.
For eleven years, the Americans were investigating the above dependence. For all time in the experiment took part more than two and a half thousand people over 60 years. Statistics show that the average age of participants in the experiment was 76 years. For eleven years, every volunteer regularly took a blood test and underwent various tests that helped psychologists and neuropathologists determine the initial level of acquired dementia. At the time of the study, all participants showed no signs of developing dementia, but 400 of the elderly volunteers out of 2500 had a low hemoglobin level in their blood. Eleven years later, the diagnosis of "senile dementia" was put to 445 participants in the experiment. After scientists analyzed the findings, they found that the risk of rapid dementia is 40% greater in people with a low hemoglobin level in the blood than in people with normal levels. A large number of volunteers who began the experiment with signs of anemia, even before the end of the study, were observed with the first manifestations of senile dementia.
Scientists said that this pattern can be associated with a deterioration in the brain's ability to work, which accompanies anemia and, of course, can affect the functions of the nervous system and the development of mental impotence.
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