Helping Others Slows Cognitive Decline in People at Higher Genetic Risk for Alzheimer’s
Researchers found that even modest time spent helping others was associated with cognitive benefits.
Regularly volunteering or informally helping people outside one’s home may buffer against accelerated decline in memory and thinking for people with a major genetic risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease, according to new research led by The University of Texas at Austin.
The study, recently published in Alzheimer’s & Dementia, focused on people who carry the APOE ε4 gene variant, the strongest known genetic risk factor for late-onset Alzheimer’s and one associated with faster cognitive decline. After analyzing 22 years of data from nearly 18,000 U.S. adults, researchers found substantially slower cognitive decline among those who began and sustained volunteering or other helping activities outside the home, like supporting friends, neighbors or relatives. The association was strongest among people at the highest genetic risk for Alzheimer’s.
Researchers estimated that people at the highest genetic risk who began and sustained helping others reached the same significant level of cognitive impairment on a screening tool almost two years later than those who did not engage in those activities.
“Very few pharmaceutical or lifestyle approaches have been shown to slow the decline driven by this gene variant,” said Sae Hwang Han, a UT associate professor of human development and family sciences, and lead author of the study. “But we found helping others — a free, accessible behavior — was linked to markedly slower cognitive decline for this group.”
The study found that even modest amounts of helping others provided benefits. Slower cognitive decline was seen in people averaging less than about four hours a week of volunteering or other informal helping activities outside the home.
While Han’s previous research also has established links between helping others and slowing down cognitive aging, the new study is among the first to look specifically at ties between volunteering and other forms of helping in conjunction with the APOE ε4 gene.
Han and co-author Jessica Faul of the University of Michigan analyzed data collected from 1998 to 2020 through the Health and Retirement Study, a nationally representative survey of older U.S. adults. They examined changes in participants’ cognitive performance as people began or stopped engaging in helping behaviors, including formal volunteering, accounting for demographic, socioeconomic, and health characteristics that could otherwise influence cognitive decline.
The type of helping also mattered. Formal volunteering was associated with slower cognitive decline across all racial and ethnic groups. Informal helping — assisting friends, neighbors and relatives — showed the strongest benefits among Hispanic older adults, a pattern that may reflect the cultural importance of such support.
The findings suggest that opportunities to contribute to others’ lives could be an important component of healthy aging, particularly for those at heightened genetic risk for Alzheimer’s disease. Previous research has linked helping others to biological processes involved in stress and inflammation, which are also associated with cognitive decline. However, this study did not examine those mechanisms.
The research was supported by the National Institute on Aging and the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development at the National Institutes of Health.
