Reducing prevalence of common risk factors by 25 per cent could prevent 3 million cases of Alzheimer's disease worldwide, says study
Published 19 July 2011
Decreasing the prevalence of risk factors including smoking and inactivity could prevent 3 million Alzheimer's cases, says research being presented at International Conference of Alzheimer's Disease.
American researchers studied a range of risk factors including low education, depression, mid-life hypertension, mid-life obesity, smoking, physical inactivity and diabetes. They analysed the strength of the association between these factors and Alzheimer's and showed that cutting down these risk factors by 25 per cent could reduce Alzheimer's cases by 3 million worldwide.
In another study, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania looked at 136 older adults with no evidence of memory impairment. They found that people who avoided stress, anxiety, depression and trauma in later life had a significantly reduced risk of dementia.
Alzheimer's Society comment:
'This study highlights the scale of the impact of lifestyle factors on our risk of developing Alzheimer's - and brings home how many people could potentially avoid this disease if we tackle them. Everyone knows how important it is to lead a generally healthy lifestyle. But if more of us ate our five fruit and veg a day, regularly cycled, ran or swam, and cut out cigarettes then we could massively reduce the hold Alzheimer's has on us.
'It is also vital that we identify and manage conditions such as depression early on. In just 10 years a million people will be living with dementia. We must act now.'
Alzheimer's Society
Research Reference: Barnes et al, 'The projected impact of risk factor reduction on Alzheimer's disease prevalence', and Steinberg at al, 'Predictors of resilient cognitive aging: baseline characteristics', published online in Lancet Neurology, Tuesday, 19 July.
