Associations of lifestyle and health factors with subjective memory complaints in a large cohort of mHealth users

OBJECTIVES: We investigated sociodemographic, lifestyle, and health correlates of subjective memory complaints (SMCs) in a large app-based cohort. METHOD: Participants were 5,011 dementia-free users of the Terrapino mobile application aged 60+ years (M = 69.5 ± 6.4 years); 72.3% were women. RESULTS: In ordinal logistic regression, age (OR = 1.03, 95% CI 1.02-1.04), perceived stress (OR = 1.12, 95% CI 1.11-1.13), depression (OR = 1.34, 95% CI 1.16-1.56), and hearing problems (OR = 1.76, 95% CI 1.58-1.95) were associated with more SMCs. Physical activity (OR = 0.91, 95% CI 0.87-0.96), mental activity (OR = 0.90, 95% CI 0.85-0.95), better diet (OR = 0.78, 95% CI 0.74-0.83), and optimal sleep (OR = 0.85, 95% CI 0.81-0.89) were associated with fewer SMCs. Effects weakened after adjusting for mental and physical health. Lifestyle explained 9% of the age-SMCs, 10% of depression-SMCs, and 6% of perceived stress-SMCs associations (ps < 0.05). CONCLUSION: In this mHealth cohort, hearing problems, depression, and perceived stress were major contributors to SMCs, whereas healthier lifestyle was associated with fewer SMCs. Lifestyle only modestly offset associations between mental health and SMCs, suggesting independent pathways outside of lifestyle exist. Still, findings highlight modifiable targets for reducing SMCs.