All the Single Ladies

By Valerie Driscoll, Lead Coach and Coaching Program Developer for Apollo Health

Upon reading the title of Ram Rao’s article submitted for last month’s (March 2026) newsletter, I let out a sigh of dismay. Marriage and Dementia; oh boy, here we go … another chapter in the tome of doom describing how I, as a single person, am at greater risk of every malady and misfortune known to man or woman, simply due to that status. Modern culture regularly reminds me that I am at higher risk of being found “pruney” and butt-side up in the shower, half eaten by my cat, or my biggest fear, choked on a macadamia nut with a Housewives episode on my TV.  (Am I the only one who occasionally tunes in to marvel at the level to which a human will disfigure themselves?) Apparently, my mortality lies just a stone’s throw away from matelessness.

So you might imagine my surprise and delight to discover that the research presented by Dr. Rao revealed my Alzheimer’s hazard ratio (HR) as a single person to be lower than that of my paired-up sisters! Pass the fat bombs! I was immediately curious as to how this finding could be possible.

After pondering both to myself and with friends, single and otherwise, I have come up with a few ideas. As I am someone who tries to find humor in the trials of life and prefers to leave the heavy lifting to the brilliant people at Apollo, I “spuried” a few correlations as to why my singleness might be protecting my cognition. There is no evidence to support these notions, but why let that stop me when I am on a roll?

Possible reasons being single has helped my cognition:

1) Figuring out how to do every damned thing myself.

I have several friends who married wonderful men when they were in their 20’s. To varying degrees, these women have never … done taxes, had anything inspected, paid a real bill (credit cards do NOT count), or had to go head-to-head with a dicey roofer. One of my best friends told me that, should any tragedy befall her husband, I would have to come and live with her, because I know how “stuff works”. I, on the other hand, have a skill set including, but not limited to:

• Itemizing my deductions
• Related: knowing which form to use
• Buying a ticket to anything
• Planting a medium-sized tree using an allsaw and basic physics. Note: Merriam-Webster does not recognize the word allsaw; apparently, she also married well. 
• Opening a wine bottle with any tool available, although NOT the allsaw
• Snapping the neck or otherwise exterminating injured vermin
• Putting my carry-on properly in the
  overhead compartment
• Arguing why my carry-on needs to be
  carried on
• Negotiating a killer car deal
• Figuring out why ______ is leaking
• Whom to call for what, and then making
  said call
• Cleaning and rehanging gutters
• Catching and releasing a non-venomous snake (does involve screaming)

2) Low exposure to the telomere-shortening “where” chromosome

The existence of which was made known to me by my mother, a citizen scientist, explaining that many men not only have a “Y” chromosome, they also have a “where” chromosome; this chromosome, also referred to as the “paradox” chromosome, necessitates asking the location of everything (ketchup, band aids, coffee, toilet paper) inside a home, while at the same time never permits asking the location of anything (gas station, rest room, museum, Orlando) outside of the home. The detrimental effects of this gene expression have been improved by the GPS, although this does not come without its own health risks.

Similar to the above, conserved gray matter through non-lethal exposure to televised golf, the History Channel, or cable news.

3) Doing all the driving.

Sure, Brain HQ’s Optic Flow has raindrops and feral kangaroos, but you know what Brain HQ hasn’t got? The DC Beltway, The Bay Bridge (200 feet in the air with guardrails I could kick over with a Doc Marten), or behemoth vehicles with DIPLOMATIC PLATES piloted by self-or-actually important people who learned to drive in Mumbai or Rome.

Compiling all this pseudo-evidence has cheered me quite a bit. While I often lament the do-it-all nature of being single, I will now relish the advantages it affords me with newfound appreciation and the belief that I may be approaching super-hero status. I am inviting all the single ladies (and single others) to do the same, and I dedicate my research to you!