Dementia & Alzheimer's - New Findings!
For those who managed to read my article on Dementia and Alzheimer’s last week, good news! Whilst walking to work the other day, I was excited to see a notification email highlighting a new commission report in The Lancet. The latest edition adds that untreated poor eyesight, as well as elevated low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol levels, are newly-found risk factors for developing dementia.
These two new risk factors have been added to the twelve existing ones, which were published in the 2020 report. I have highlighted all fourteen risk factors below. It is estimated that if these risk factors were correctly managed, minimised, or controlled, up to 45% of all dementia cases worldwide could be prevented in future.
Potential Risk Factors
Less education
Head injury
Physical inactivity
Smoking
Excessive alcohol consumption
High blood pressure (hypertension)
Obesity
Type 2 diabetes
Hearing loss
Depression
Social isolation
Air pollution
High LDL-cholesterol
Untreated poor eyesight
The same old story…
Perhaps frustratingly, this article also highlights the seemingly simple, but often ignored intervention strategies to combat these risk factors. Examples include: increasing the level of helmet protection in sport or exercise to prevent traumatic brain injury, improving air quality by lowering pollution levels, spreading awareness on the benefits of minimising alcohol consumption and cigarette smoking (and managing sales by inflating prices), and effectively treating poor mental health. The report also calls for improved education, greater accessibility to hearing aids, and regular health check-ups from middle age.
Overall, this is positive news. However, predictions estimate that in the next 25 years, the number of cases of Dementia and Alzheimer’s may exceed 150 million worldwide. We are an ageing population, but living for longer is no good if our quality of life diminishes due to lifestyle diseases. These findings are further evidence that an active lifestyle can be so important for staving off such diseases. In this list of risk factors alone, regular exercise can play a role in preventing: physical inactivity (obviously), obesity, depression, high LDL cholesterol, diabetes, hypertension, and social isolation. These factors alone account for a potential 22% reduction in dementia cases in the future.
Physical activity is not a panacea, but clearly, it plays a significant role in the prevention of dementia.