Almost one million Britons are living with dementia, a syndrome linked to the progressive deterioration of the brain. And this number is expected to rise in coming years due to our ageing population.
Many people are under the impression that there is not much you can do to prevent developing the condition. It is often seen as something that is passed down genetically.
But this is far from the truth. In fact, scientists believe around 40 percent of all dementia cases could be prevented.
This is through a number of lifestyle factors such as not smoking, cutting back on alcohol and exercising.
And now research has determined 15 specific factors that could lower your risk for early-onset dementia, which affects people under the age of 65.
As part of a study, published in JAMA Neurology, researchers at the University of Exeter and Maastricht University in the Netherlands followed more than 350,000 participants under the age of 65 from across the UK to understand the risks of early dementia.
They investigated the association between 39 potential risk factors and the incidence of young-onset dementia among the participants.
These included lifestyle, social and health-related factors.
And of these, the team found that 15 were significantly associated with a higher risk of young-onset dementia:
- Social isolation
- Lower formal education
- Lower socioeconomic status
- Carrying two copies of the APOE gene
- Vitamin D deficiency
- Hearing impairment
- Alcohol use disorder
- No alcohol use (abstinence)
- Depression
- High C-reactive protein levels
- Lower handgrip strength (physical frailty)
- Orthostatic hypotension (a form of low blood pressure)
- Stroke
- Diabetes
- Heart disease.
While some of these factors will be beyond a person’s control or non-modifiable, others can be changed – modifiable.
Most of these overlap with the known risk factors for and behaviours that reduce risk of dementia in older people.
Speaking to Today.com, study co-author and professor of clinical epidemiology and digital health at the University of Exeter David Llewellyn, said: “We were surprised by just how many risk factors for dementia in elderly people were also important in people who were middle-aged.”
However, the study also revealed several risk factors for young-onset dementia that had not been reported or studied before, such as vitamin D deficiency, orthostatic hypotension, and high C-reactive protein (CRP) levels.
Prof Llewellyn noted that the 15 risk factors varied in importance and more research is needed to confirm how they rank.
He said: “There may be additional risk factors that we still need to identify.”
Moreover the relationship between dementia and some risk factors, such as alcohol use, was complex.
Both drinking too much and not drinking at all made the list of 15 factors.
People with a diagnosis of alcohol use disorder were found to have a higher risk of young-onset dementia.
But moderate to heavy alcohol consumption was associated with a lower incidence compared to abstinence.
“This may be due to the ‘healthy drinker effect,’ in which people who drink are healthier, while abstainers are more likely to not consume alcohol because of poor health or use of medication,” the study said.
Although more research is needed the findings suggest that the risk of early-onset dementia could be controlled through these factors.
“There’s good evidence that staying physically, mentally and socially active may help to protect the brain as we age,” Prof Llewellyn added.
“In addition, try to avoid or at least carefully manage any health conditions that you have.
“We can be hopeful that a wide range of modifiable risk factors appear important, thus we can be hopeful that dementia can be delayed or even prevented.”