Modifiable Risk Factors Could Prevent Half of Dementia Cases: Study 

Modifiable Risk Factors Could Prevent Half of Dementia Cases: Study. Credit | Getty Images
Modifiable Risk Factors Could Prevent Half of Dementia Cases: Study. Credit | Getty Images

United States: At present, it is estimated that over 55 million individuals are living with dementia across the globe, hence illustrated to be increasing to almost three times by the year 2050. 

However, managing 14 modifiable risk factors throughout one’s life, beginning in childhood, could reduce or postpone nearly half of the dementia cases, as per 27 dementia specialists’ reports. 

More about the news 

Based on reviews of the latest evidence, the Wednesday report by The Lancet Commission on dementia prevention, intervention, and care adds two risk factors – high cholesterol and vision loss – to 12 others previously identified in its 2020 report. 

Those existing risk factors are less education, head injury, physical inactivity, smoking, excessive alcohol consumption, hypertension, obesity, diabetes, hearing loss, depression, air pollution, and infrequent social contact. 

According to Dr. Gill Livingston, the report’s lead author, the research group wanted to compile and “add to evidence to give individuals and government accessible, reliable information and to help set a research agenda by highlighting what we don’t know,” as CNN Health reported. 

Modifiable Risk Factors Could Prevent Half of Dementia Cases: Study. Credit | Shutterstock
Modifiable Risk Factors Could Prevent Half of Dementia Cases: Study. Credit | Shutterstock

“The progress in preventing and treating dementia is accelerating,” he continued. 

Livingston, a professor of psychiatry of older people at University College London, said that the first twelve risk factors represented forty percent of the cases. 

Applying the approach to the fourteen risk factors proposed by the new report could reduce the rate of dementia by 45 percent. 

What are the findings of the report? 

High cholesterol starting in middle age at about the age of 40 was found to be responsible for 7 percent of dementia. At the same time, untreated vision loss in the late period of life was also attributed to 2% of the cases of dementia in old age. 

The largest proportional number of people aged above 65 developing dementia across the globe was identified to be at high risk due to high cholesterol, hearing impairment, low education in the initial stages of life, and low social activity in the later stages of life, the authors have stated. 

Modifiable Risk Factors Could Prevent Half of Dementia Cases: Study. Credit | Getty Images
Modifiable Risk Factors Could Prevent Half of Dementia Cases: Study. Credit | Getty Images

This “critical” update calls for the attention of two important risk factors: preventive neurologist Dr. Richard Issacson, who says his medical clinical has been overviewing for over a decade. 

According to Isaacson, the director of research at the Institute for Neurodegenerative Diseases in Florida, who was not part of the study, “Now the evidence has caught up to what we recommend to patients,” CNN Health reported. 

What are the effects on the brain? 

Some of the risk factors highlighted in the report do not conclusively point to dementia as the effect of those behaviors, experts noted. 

That is, some of the risk factors might be the first manifestations of dementia, and the diagnosis has not occurred yet; thus, eradicating the risk factors does not always have an effect on dementia risk, said Dr. Klaus Ebmeier, Foundation Chair of Old Age Psychiatry at the University of Oxford, in the news release. Ebmeier was not included in the study. 

However, other studies have proposed hypotheses regarding these risk factors and dementia. The influence of extra pounds might relate to body fat’s function in the metabolic and vascular pathways linked to forming beta-amyloid protein, a key sign of Alzheimer’s disease. 

A January 2022 study showed that physical activity can delay dementia, perhaps by raising amounts of a protein that supports connections thought to help brain cells. 

Exercise also decreases inflammation, which contributes to the death of nerve cells. Social correlation can also help a person lower stress and gain better-quality health care. 

According to Livingston, education is also one of the important reasons as Most importantly it makes the brain more resilient to damage, so people can have changes but still function well,” as CNN Health reported. 

“It also helps people make good choices by enabling them to think about evidence in a more educated way, and it is related to getting better jobs, and money gives more choices, for example, in health care and where to live,” he continued.