Nevertheless, in general, individuals who suffer from dementia have a tendency to live shorter than people who are otherwise healthy. A recent study reveals that in the case of twins, who appear to be unaffected, they may also be impacted. A larger analysis of nearly 1,000 people with dementia who also happened to be twins was also included in the study.
Discover all the intriguing details below.
Studies involving twins are very beneficial natural investigations that allow researchers to address concerns that would normally be difficult to address. These issues pertain to the extent to which genetics or lifestyle variables influence the health of an individual. A team of researchers discovered that there was a bigger disparity in lifespan between twins who were fraternal than there was between identical twins. This was determined by comparing the number of years that had passed since one member of identical twin pairs and members of fraternal twin pairs had been diagnosed with dementia.
The findings indicate that the higher likelihood of having a shorter life span linked to dementia could be passed on to an individual’s cognitively unaffected twin. This raises questions about the extent to which genetics, as compared to the condition or external variables, are responsible for their premature death.
Even though identical twins with co-twins affected by dementia may never suffer from dementia themselves, they, too, may have a shortened lifespan, explained the researchers.
Despite the fact that environmental factors that are specific to each twin can still have an impact, this strongly suggests that the genetic factors that identical twins share are the ones that are responsible for their similarly shorter lifespans. Due to the fact that Alzheimer’s disease accounted for the majority of the dementia instances that were analyzed, it is possible that the patterns of life expectancy for other types of dementia will be different.
The Swedish Twin Registry, which is a large cohort study consisting of more than 45,000 Swedish twins, provided the data that was used in the recent study.
