Keeping a full social calendar may help protect you from dementia, researchers said on Monday.

    Socially active people who were not easily stressed had a 50 percent lower risk of developing dementia compared with men and women who were isolated and prone to distress, they reported in the journal Neurology.

    "In the past, studies have shown that chronic distress can affect parts of the brain, such as the hippocampus, possibly leading to dementia," Hui-Xin Wang of the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, who led the study, said in a statement.

    "But our findings suggest that having a calm and outgoing personality in combination with a socially active lifestyle may decrease the risk of developing dementia even further."

    An estimated 24 million people worldwide have the memory loss, problems with orientation and other symptoms that signal Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia.

    Researchers believe the number of people with dementia may quadruple by 2040, underlining the importance of better understanding the condition.

    The Swedish study involved 506 elderly people who did not have dementia when first examined. The volunteers were given questionnaires about their personality traits and lifestyles and then tracked for six years.

    Over that time, 144 people developed dementia with more socially active and less stressed men and women 50 percent less likely to be diagnosed with the condition.

    "The good news is, lifestyle factors can be modified as opposed to genetic factors which cannot be controlled," Wang said. "But these are early results, so how exactly mental attitude influences risk for dementia is not clear."

    瑞典研究人員于本周一稱，多參加社交活動有助于預防癡呆。

    研究人員在《神經學》期刊上稱，常參加社交活動的人不易感到壓力，他們患癡呆癥的風險比那些孤僻、易抑郁的人低50%。

    負責該項研究的瑞典卡羅林斯卡學院的王慧欣（音譯）在研究報告中稱：“此前的研究證實，長期抑郁會損害大腦的海馬體等部位，從而可能會導致癡呆。”

    “但我們的研究表明，平和外向的性格再加上愛社交的生活方式可能會降低患癡呆癥的風險。”

    據估計，目前全球約有2400萬人有失憶、不辨方向等阿爾茲海默癥等各種形式癡呆癥的癥狀。

    研究人員認為，到2040年全球的癡呆癥患者數量可能將翻兩番，因此必須引起重視。

    該研究共對506位初診時未患癡呆癥的老年人進行了調查。研究人員讓他們填寫了一份有關性格特點和生活方式的調查問卷，并對他們進行了為期六年的跟蹤調查。

    在此期間，共有144人患上癡呆癥，而常參加社交活動且壓力較小的人患此病的幾率要低50%。

    王慧欣說：“值得慶幸的是，生活方式可以改變，不像基因那樣無法控制。但這僅僅是初期研究成果，所以精神狀態究竟在多大程度上影響患癡呆癥的風險目前還不清楚。”