Avoiding These Three Vascular Health Risk Factors in Midlife Can Help You Delay Dementia for About 13 Years, Study Suggests
High blood pressure, diabetes and smoking are three major modifiable risk factors of dementia. New research tracked more than 12,000 participants to quantify how many years of healthy cognitive function you can gain by evading some or all of them during middle age
A new study has found that avoiding three specific risk factors in midlife—high blood pressure, diabetes, and smoking—could help delay the onset of dementia by about 13 years. Researchers from New York University followed 12,409 U.S. adults for roughly 26 years, starting when participants were an average age of 56 and free from dementia.
The participants were dementia-free at the beginning of the study, but some smoked, had high blood pressure, or had diabetes or a combination of the three. Individuals with all three risk factors in midlife were 2.7 times more likely to develop dementia than those without any of these factors. Those who avoided the risk factors at middle age enjoyed an average of 30.1 dementia-free years, compared to 17.5 years for those with all three.
The study, published in Neurology Open Access, suggests that improving vascular health in midlife may lead to more years of dementia-free life. While the study cannot prove causation, it highlights the association between avoiding these risk factors and a delay in dementia onset. No cure currently exists for dementia, but research indicates that taking steps to protect brain health early on could provide a crucial defense.
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