Your husband (or wife) may increase your risk of dementia by up to 70%

Could your spouse’s dementia be contagious?Being married has been shown to help sustain many aspects of health.Married people with heart disease are less likely to have a heart attack or die from cardiovascular disease, they have a lower risk of obesity and they’re also likely to live longer.But the story is actually a bit more complicated.

A new study showed that those who were married to someone with dementia had a higher chance of developing dementia themselves, compared to married couples where neither dealt with dementia.It’s a significant increase in risk — up to 74% in women, and 69% in men.This builds on research from last year that showed widowed, divorced or never-married folks had a lower risk of dementia compared to people who were married.It suggests that people build their own social networks after their partner dies, or after divorce — and if they were never married, they have more time and energy to build those bonds.But how exactly can a marriage that provides love, support and that spice of life hurt the health of your brain? Researchers have a few theories.The study, published Monday, looked at nearly 1 million married people in Taiwan.

Researchers found that people with spouses who had dementia had a higher risk of developing the same symptoms, compared to married couples that weren’t dealing with dementia.Dementia is not a disease in itself, it’s a broad category of symptoms that encompass decline in cognitive abilities, like memory, language, and problem solving.In this study, dementia from all causes were considered, including Alzheimer’s (abnormal protein formation) and vascular dementia (disrupted blood flow to the brain).This was seen across both sexes and diverse neighborhood settings (urban, suburban and rural).Interestingly, though the association was still present, those with higher income and more children were slightly less likely to develop to dementia.Researchers suggest there may be a couple things at play, inclu...