An Early Sign of Dementia Risk May Be Keeping You Up at Night, Says Study

Question

This article is saying that having bad dreams frequently may be a sign that your at risk for dementia.

Answer 1

The article, mentions a study that is published in eClinicalMedicine journal. The journal is reputable and is used for early evidence in clinical research. The study also uses a wide range of participants to analyze the data. There are "over 600 people aged between 35 and 64, and 2,600 people aged 79 and older" used in the study which allows for a wide range of data to be collected. The article suggests that experiencing nightmares frequently can cause cognitive decline and eventually led to dementia. In another article, it supports this claim. It states, "having more regular distressing dreams during childhood was linearly and statistically significantly associated with a higher risk of developing cognitive impairment or PD by age 50." This suggests that frequently experiencing nightmares could be an early sign of developing dementia later down the line.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10102896/

Comments

This is a great fact check as you discuss what the main claim is, the potential flaws in the study cited by the claim, and provide your own source which backs up this information. I would suggest discussing why your source is reputable and explain how the source the claimer used is reputable.

Answer 2

At first glance this source doesn't seem reliable to be making such a large claim. However, upon further investigation, it's clear that the article was written by a qualified professional who's findings were also published in a medical journal. Abidemi Otaiku, a clinical fellow in neurology at University of Birmingham conducted a nine year study following over 600 people of various ages. This began with a thorough survey about sleep habits, eating, every detail. Throughout the study, data began to reflect that people were overall four times more likely to develop declines in cognitive and memory capabilities. Otaiku is the author of the article cited in the claim. This information is direct from the source, reliable, and supported by multiple medical institutes.

https://www.alzinfo.org/articles/caregiving/what-our-dreams-may-tell-us-about-our-alzheimers-risk/

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/eclinm/article/PIIS2589-5370(22)00370-4/fulltext

Comments

I think that it is really important that you have looked more into the actual study and researched the people who had conducted it. Sometimes the websites the information is being presented in seem sketchy and so it's easy to quickly think it isn’t true, which is why it's important to trace the information back all the way to where it originated.

Answer 3

The claim is very well written in addressing the 'maybe' of the situation as this is a research topic on if this is a true statement. There have been cases where nightmares are present in dementia ridden people but this is not always the case, as with most things. The original article is a good source to find the complete research project as secondary sources might not always have the full information. 

https://theconversation.com/nightmares-are-a-good-predictor-of-future-dementia-new-study-191016

Comments

I agree that this is more of a research topic, not really a claim, therefore, we aren't able to say it is true or false. A label that may be more fitting for your position may be “cant be true or false”. Otherwise, I think that your post would be more effective as a comment instead of an answer as it does not answer anything but rather it offers an opinion and guidance. Ultimately, you had good insight on the purpose of the original post, thank you.

Answer 4

Nightmares are a potential symptom of dementia. The article provided in the original claim is reputable and provides clear information and data surrounding this phenomenon: "older men who had nightmares every week were five times more likely to develop dementia compared with older men reporting no bad dreams." (Otaiku) 

However, the provided article is not the only source of research available. Dementia Society and the Fisher Center For Alzheimer's Research Foundation have both provided similar findings. While reading both of these new articles, I realized that the author of the original article is cited in the Fisher Center's reports. This makes his research a lot more credible in my eyes. 

Another piece of evidence that supports the claim is that medical treatment for nightmares reduces the buildup of abnormal proteins in the brain. A person suffering from Alzheimer's disease is inflicted with a buildup of a protein known as prion protein (Dementia Society.) While this could be a coincidence, it would seem that nightmares and dementia inflict similar symptoms onto the brain, therefore it seems entirely plausible the two could be linked.

Articles:

Dementia Help

What Our Dreams May Tell Us About Our Alzheimer’s Risk - Fisher Center for Alzheimer's Research Foundation

Answer 5

This claim is true. I looked into research done by the Fisher Center for Alzheimer’s research foundation, which is a reliable source for this topic. A study author, Dr. Abidemi Otaiku stated, “We’ve demonstrated for the first time that distressing dreams, or nightmares, can be linked to dementia risk and cognitive decline among healthy adults in the general population.” The article also talks about the same study that the original article from this post referred back to, the distressing dreams study done by eClinicalMedicine. Overall, this claim is true and there are several sources to back it up.

https://www.alzinfo.org/articles/caregiving/what-our-dreams-may-tell-us-about-our-alzheimers-risk/

Answer 6

This claim is true and the source being referenced is very convincing. By doing some research, it's shown that the author of the source, Abidemi Otaiku, is a "Clinical Research Fellow and a speciality registrar in neurology". According to the profession of the author, the article gained trustworthiness. "His research examines the neurobiological basis of sleep and dreaming" provided more convincing power to the source. Not only the author was convincing, but the article also contained details of the research and experiment such as "I analyzed data from three large US studies of health and aging. These included over 600 people aged between 35 and 64, and 2,600 people aged 79 and older." Statistics always are able to strengthen the article. Besides the source being used, it's discovered that "frequent nightmares in seniors may also signal and increased risk of dementia", according to Fisher Center For Alzheimer's Research Foundation. However, I am not sure if the claim title is accurate enough of what we could learn from the source. It would be better if the claim was similar to "Nightmares can be an early sign of dementia".

https://theconversation.com/profiles/abidemi-otaiku-1352101

https://www.alzinfo.org/articles/caregiving/what-our-dreams-may-tell-us-about-our-alzheimers-risk/#:~:text=Frequent%20nightmares%20in%20seniors%20may,common%20form%20of%20dementia%20worldwide.