How to Avoid Brain rot from Caregiver stress--and marital house-mating

The Roommate Dilemma

How to Avoid Brain rot from Caregiver stress--and marital room- or house-mating

The Roommate Dilemma

I’m influenced by a recent patient: Four years ago a 67 year old woman came in for her first visit with me because she had lost several pounds unexpectedly, felt some memory lapses like forgetting a phone number, not finding a word here and there, and forgetting a friend’s name, and feeling stress.

She was worried she might have an undiscovered as yet cancer. As I inquired about her home life, the reason behind the significant stress became more apparent. Her husband’s drinking habits caused her to be suffering from mental and emotional abuse for many years.

They lived together simply out of convenience, didn’t eat together or talk much to each other, and had slept in different bedrooms for about 4 years. Essentially, they were no longer a married couple but house mates. No passion of love like they had when they married, and not even enjoyment. But they had and raised kids together –but now even the kids chose favorites. She related she and her husband now barely or not even tolerate each other after 30+ years of marriage.

That is something my physician mates and I have been seeing fairly commonly. Usually it starts with a decrease in sex to almost zero and then zero. And then deciding that you really don’t have many values in common save raising the kids to be happy---but more later.

Her body and mind like in many other men and women in such house mate relationships reacted to the stress she felt. ; it literally impacted every aspect of her. People under stress tend to gain or lose significant amounts of weight. She had lost weight not through exercise or healthy eating. She had developed muscle wasting.

Thus, resolving the problem sounds easy, just remove the stressor—get marriage counselling and/or a divorce and move on. Well, no. Neither the woman nor her husband were willing to move to separate homes or lives as they both individually loved their house for different reasons and marriage counseling had already failed. So, what next?

Clearly my focus was on her since she now was my patient. She accepted a longevity care plan based on stress management and not thinking about her hatred of some of the behaviors of her house mate (e.g., husband in name only). She developed many ways of stress management along with eating and exercising for her brain.

Now, at age 71, 4 years later, she has an ActualAge of 7 years younger rather than 10 years older than her calendar age—she had gained 21 years of healthy living in these four years on the calendar: she is much more functional in every way. She has developed her own posse and purpose, and exercises daily including resistance training—she eats healthily and consumes 80 grams of healthful protein daily to increase her muscle mass; says she feels stronger and better than anytime since age 30. And that is the message from three recent articles. You can recover brain function and healthy choices are the process such as stress management, food consumption, portion size, physical activity, and speed of processing brain games—but posse and purpose are key, and have been key for her.

The impact of stress on the body is extensive and can lead to many other health issues including brain rot.

And no, I’m not talking about the internet culture brain rot that’s used to describe pointless social media content the youth are consuming which is assumed to cause a decline in mental abilities.

The data are clear—develop your posse, find a purpose, and get active all the time you are awake: At Vanderbuilt Memory and Alzeimher’s Center, 404 older adults participiated in a longitudinal study, "Greater sedentary behavior was associated with smaller hippocampal volume and worse cognitive performance over a 7-year period despite taking into account the level of daily moderate-to-vigorous physical activity each person engaged in.”

Furthermore, losing weight can be an incredibly impactful measure at living longer, healthy, and happy, A new study in JAMA Open Network (https://jamanetwork.com/ journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2834426) evaluated health outcomes for more than 23,000 folks in their mid-thirties to mid-forties who were overweight or obese. Those who lost (and kept off) just under 7% of their body weight without surgical or pharmacological (no GLP’s, etc.) interventions were significantly more likely to be free of dementia, heart attacks, stokes, cancer, asthma or COPD—or die from any cause—in the next three or four decades, compared to folks who just maintained or gained weight.

With our help and a little help from her friends, she’s developed an independent posse, a purpose in gardening and volunteering in non-working time at a nature center, and has regained her normal svelte weight, does regular physical activity, and says her memory is back to sharp. Yes she still shares the same house, but seems more ready to explore other mates now. Most importantly for her, seeing her mate no longer induces stress.

The message, to avoid brain rot, manage stress with posse, purpose and play that includes regular throughout the day physical activity. More next week on avoiding brain rot, and specific data for caregivers, and for husbands and wives that lack passion for each other as they age, but I need another walk now.

Thanks for reading.

Michael F. Roizen MD