November 20, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) – Those living the homosexual lifestyle are more likely to develop “cognitive impairment” such as dementia in old age than “heterosexual populations,” according to a new study published in The Gerontologist.
“The prevalence of cognitive impairment is significantly higher among sexual minority older adults than among heterosexual older adults when sociodemographic factors are adjusted for,” the study found. The study, titled “Elevated Risk of Cognitive Impairment Among Older Sexual Minorities: Do Health Conditions, Health Behaviors, and Social Connections Matter?” was released September 19. The study used a nationally representative sample of older Americans.
The study noted that “depressive symptoms explain some of this prevalence gap,” adding, however, that depressive symptoms are an “important link between minority sexual orientation and cognitive impairment and highlight the importance of studying other potential mechanisms that we could not explore in this study.”
Ning Hsieh, Assistant Professor of Sociology at Michigan State University and lead author of the study, suggested in an interview that lack of social acceptance of people living the LGBT lifestyle could lead to higher levels of stress and depression, resulting in the disparity.
“LGB people experience more stressful events and have higher rates of depression compared to their heterosexual counterparts,” she said. “They may experience higher rates of depression than their heterosexual peers for many reasons, including not being accepted by parts of society, feeling ashamed of their sexual orientation, or trying to hide their romantic relationships and being treated unfairly in school or at work.”
Hsieh suggested that making society “more just and more accepting of diverse sexuality may help prevent dementia and reduce related health care burden on society.”
But a 2020 Pew Research report showed that 72 percent of Americans are already accepting of homosexuality.
The argument that depression and anxiety would decrease among homosexuals the more society celebrated their lifestyle ignores evidence that such depression and anxiety may be rooted in something much deeper. A number of psychologists and psychiatrists make the case that same-sex attraction is rooted in early childhood trauma.
The late Dr. Joseph Nicolosi, whose books have been banned from Amazon, held that if that trauma was never resolved it stands to reason that the individual would struggle with their mental health no matter how much they celebrated their “sexual orientation.”
In a 2016 article explaining homosexuality in men, Dr. Nicolosi wrote that “Homosexuality is, in my view, primarily a symptom of gender trauma. Although some people may have been born with biological conditions (prenatal hormonal influences, inborn emotional sensitivity) that make them especially vulnerable to such trauma, what distinguishes the male homosexual condition is that there was an interruption in the normal masculine identification process.”
“Homosexual behavior is a symptomatic attempt to ‘repair’ the original wound that left the boy alienated from the innate masculinity that he has failed to claim. This differentiates it from heterosexuality, which arises naturally from undisturbed gender-identity development,” he added.
In a 2006 essay, French priest-psychotherapist Tony Anatrella wrote that the argument that homosexuality does not originate with early childhood psychological issues “does not correspond to the opinion of the majority of practitioners, who are forced to keep quiet so as not to be punished in the name of the politically correct orthodoxy in fashion.”
Interestingly, a February 2020 study from Japan also found that traumatic experiences in early childhood could lead to dementia in later life.