Preventing hypertension, heart disease could keep dementia at bay

• While the causes of dementia are complex, many cases of dementia can be linked to several modifiable risk factors.
• A new study finds that such risk factors are associated with nearly half of all dementias.
• One of the study’s key insights is that dementias are actually conditions that begin many years before symptoms appear, and that addressing risk factors early in life may allow one to avoid dementias later on.
• Vascular dementia, in particular, is linked to modifiable risk factors.

We can control, or at least positively influence, the risk factors associated with the development of nearly half of all dementias, says a new study from Skåne University Hospital in Sweden.

Modifiable factors account for 45% of dementia risk, according to existing research, and a new study, whose findings appear in The Journal of Prevention of Alzheimer’s Disease, zooms in on this link.

The study focuses on the two most common forms of dementia, Alzheimer’s disease and vascular dementia.

High blood pressure, hyperlipidemia, ischemic heart disease, smoking, and lower levels of education were linked to white matter hyperintensities. These are damaged areas of the brain and indicate vascular dementia.

The study also reports that beta-amyloid plaques — a biomarker of Alzheimer’s disease — are tied to diabetes, while lower body mass index (BMI) was associated with accumulation of tau protein tangles, another Alzheimer’s biomarker.

The authors of the study analyzed data for 494 participants, with an average age of 65, who had enrolled in the prospective Swedish BioFINDER-2 study.

All were thoroughly evaluated during the process, with cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) analysis, PET imaging, MRI scans, and clinical and cognitive evaluations. They were tracked over 4 years as changes in their brains were observed and recorded.