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Memory complaints in young adults tied to poor health, lifestyle factors

Depression, too little exercise and high blood pressure could increase the risk for memory problems, even among young adults, according to recent study findings published in PLOS ONE.

Gary Small, MD, director of the Longevity Center at the University of California, Los Angeles, and colleagues evaluated more than 18,000 adults aged 18 to 99 years about their memory and a variety of lifestyle and health factors to determine the risk for Alzheimer’s disease and dementia. Risk factors included depression, lower education levels, physical inactivity, high BP, diabetes, obesity and smoking.

Gary Small

“In this study, for the first time, we determined these risk factors may also be indicative of early memory complaints, which are often precursors to more significant memory decline later in life,” Small said in a press release.

Subjective memory impairment increased with the number of applicable risk factors for all participants. The likelihood of memory complaints was increased with depression, low levels of education, physical inactivity and high BP across all age groups. However, depression was the strongest risk factor for memory complaints among all participants.

Twenty percent of all participants had memory complaints, including 14% of younger adults (18-39 years), 22% of middle-aged adults (40-59 years) and 26% of older adults (60-99 years).

Significant interactions were found between some risk factors for young adults, including diabetes and depression (P=.04), education and obesity (P=.04), education and hypertension (P=.05), smoking and exercise (P=.01), and diabetes and exercise (P=.03). Significant interactions were also found for middle-aged adults, including smoking and exercise (P=.04) and exercise and depression (P=.03).

“We hope that our findings will raise awareness among researchers, health care providers and the general public about the importance of lowering these risk factors at any age, such as getting screened and treated for depression and high blood pressure, exercising more and furthering one’s education,” study researcher Stephen T. Chen, MD, associate clinical professor of psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences at the Semel Institute, said in the release.

Disclosure: See the study for a full list of researchers’ financial disclosures.