Constipation Associated with Cognitive Aging and Decline
Approximately 16% of the world’s population struggles with constipation. That prevalence is even higher among older adults due to age-related factors like fiber-deficient diets, lack of exercise, and the use of certain constipating drugs to treat other medical conditions.
Chronic constipation — defined as having bowel movements every 3+ days — has been associated with long-term health issues like inflammation, hormonal imbalances, and depression.
To study this relationship, Chaoran Ma, M.D., Ph., a former research fellow at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School and current Assistant Professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, assessed three prospective cohort studies of more than 110,000 people in the Nurses’ Health Study, the Nurses’ Health Study II, and the Health Professionals Follow-up Study. Ma and team collected data on all participants’ bowel movement frequency in 2012-2013 and their self-assessments of cognitive function from 2014 to 2017; objective cognitive function was measured between 2014 and 2018 in a subgroup of 12,696 participants.
The researchers found that less frequent bowel movements were associated with poorer cognitive function. Compared to those with bowel movements once daily, constipated participants (bowel movements every three days or more) had significantly worse cognition, equivalent to 3 years more of chronological cognitive aging. Bowel movement frequency of every three days or less was associated with 73% higher odds of subjective cognitive decline. They also found:
·A slightly increased risk of cognitive decline in those who had bowel movements more than twice a day.
·Study participants with certain specific levels of microbes in the gut — fewer bacteria that can produce butyrate and fewer bacteria responsible for digesting dietary fibers — had both less frequent bowel movements and worse cognitive function.
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