Don’t be cynical about this article. It could increase your chances of dementia, according to a study published in the journal Neurology.
Cynicism, or the belief that others act purely in their own self-interest, has previously been linked with an increase in the risk of getting heart disease and now researchers from Finland believe that it also increases your chance of suffering from dementia.
1,449 people with an average age of 71 were given tests to help identify dementia and a questionnaire to gage their level of cynicism. After adjusting for other factors, the researchers found that, of the 164 cynical people, 14 had developed dementia, whereas only nine of the 212 people with low levels of cynicism suffered from dementia.
Good news for cynics is that when researchers looked at how many people who participated in the study had died ten years later, they did not find any evidence which suggested that the cynics died sooner than non-cynics.
