Overview
- An analysis in The Lancet Psychiatry links a specific cluster of midlife depressive features to later dementia, rather than depression as a whole.
- The six symptoms are losing confidence, inability to face problems, lack of warmth for others, feeling nervous and strung-up, dissatisfaction with how tasks are done, and difficulties concentrating.
- Using data from 5,811 Whitehall II participants assessed in 1997–1999 and followed for about 23 years, roughly 10% developed dementia.
- Midlife depression was associated with a 27% higher dementia risk overall, with loss of confidence and difficulty coping each tied to about a 50% increase, and the association in under-60s driven entirely by the six symptoms.
- Authors and external experts stress the findings are observational with limited generalisability from a predominantly white, male cohort, and they call for replication; separate GBHI messaging highlights adolescent risks such as heavy drinking, smoking, inactivity and social isolation.