Almost everyone has someone in their life who has been touched by dementia and the number of diagnoses continue to grow at an alarming rate. It’s estimated that 82 million people worldwide will have dementia by 2030, according to the World Health Organization. In the U.S., an estimated 14 million will have Alzheimer’s disease, a leading cause of dementia, by 2050, doubling the current number. While this memory-deteriorating disease has no known cure, there is new research that shows promise of reducing the risk of developing dementia.
“It’s not yet definitive, but in the past five years, we’ve made progress on identifying modifiable risk factors for which the evidence is pretty strong,” says Kristine Yaffe, MD, professor of psychiatry, neurology and epidemiology at the University of California San Francisco and director of the Memory Disorders Clinic at the San Francisco Veterans Affairs Medical Center, as reported by WedMd.
The biggest risk factor, getting older, is obviously unavoidable. However, we are learning that addressing issues in midlife, and making positive lifestyle choices, can affect healthy outcomes later in life. Here, we’ve outlined some of the lesser known risk factors that increase the risk of developing dementia as you age.
High Blood Pressure: There has been a correlation between high blood pressure and an increased risk of dementia. According to a study published in August 2017, researchers followed nearly 16,000 adults ages 44 to 66 for 24 years. Their results revealed that people with high blood pressure in midlife had a nearly 40% higher risk of dementia. Furthermore, a 2014 review of previously published studies estimated that midlife high blood pressure led to as many as 425,000 cases of Alzheimer’s disease in the U.S. each year.1
Sleep deprivation: We’ve learned that during sleep the brain is able to clean itself, flushing out toxic buildups of beta-amyloid, a protein linked to Alzheimer’s disease. When our bodies don’t get the necessary amount of sleep it hampers the brain’s ability to perform this task. Over time, the buildup of toxins may lead to dementia. Yaffe says that it’s not clear exactly what explains the link between sleep and dementia, but that there is a connection between sleep and the clearing of beta-amyloid that warrants further exploration.
Hearing Loss: This one seems especially unexpected. In June 207, a notable report on dementia added hearing loss to the significant risk factors1. Currently, experts aren’t sure what links hearing loss to dementia, though they can make some reasonable conjecture. The authors of the report noted that hearing problems force the brain to work harder to understand what’s being said. Over time, it’s possible that extra burden could cause damage. It’s also worth noting that poor hearing is isolating, not allowing for full participation in conversations, which activate large swaths of the brain. This lack of mental stimulation over time could lead to damage.
Head injuries: It’s not new news that head injuries have been conclusively tied to dementia. In a study published in January of this year1, researchers examined the health records of more than 164,000 people who’d had a traumatic brain injury. Serious injuries doubled the risk of dementia, while repeated injuries nearly tripled it. Even after more than 30 years, the risk remained 25% higher than normal. Recent research also suggests that even mild head injuries make dementia more likely, and more severe injuries boost the risk even higher. The correlation between all of these modalities is frightening if not fascinating.
It’s been well established that there are three main areas of focus to decrease the risk of dementia: exercise, mental stimulation and heart health. But this new research suggests that there are other areas to explore, and many ways that we can protect our bodies today for a fruitful, active life tomorrow. Many medical specialists are working to keep up to date with all aspects of Dementia and the book, “Dementia“ attempts to document current practices in diagnosing, treating and caring for individuals with Dementia.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GADYZAHF0qQ&t=5s
1https://www/webmd.com/alzheimers/news/20180530/risk-factors-that-put-you-on-the-road-to-dementia