Researchers say they have discovered the 9 main factors that put patients at risk for Alzheimer’s. They alone are responsible for two thirds of dementias.
According to a study recently published in Radiology, four specific cardiovascular risk factors (tobacco, alcohol, obesity, diabetes) are linked to a loss of volume in several regions of the brain involved in memory.
This type of research on Alzheimer’s disease took another big step on Tuesday. American researchers have just determined the nine potentially modifiable risk factors that are involved in two-thirds of cases of dementia (Alzheimer’s type) in the world. These groundbreaking results from an observational study have been published in the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry.
A list of 93 possible risk factors
To arrive at this discovery, Pr Wei Xu, neurologist at the Center on Memory and Age of the Unity of California (San Francisco), gathered and analyzed 351 studies published between 1968 and 2014 to arrive at these nine determinants: obesity, smoking, atherosclerosis of the carotid arteries (neck), type 2 diabetes, low level of education, depression, arterial hypertension, high homocysteine level in the blood and general frailty therefore make up this list.
Thus, even if at the beginning there were 93 possible risk factors, by crossing all the studies, only 9 come back systematically, specify the scientists.
The call for the launch of a major European study
In conclusion, the authors stress that the observational nature of the study does not make it possible to affirm that there really is a cause and effect relationship between these risk factors and the cases of Alzheimer’s disease observed.
They therefore call for randomized trials to confirm their results. However, they suggest that “preventative strategies targeting diet, drugs, homocysteine, mental health, underlying diseases and lifestyle could help slow the outbreak of Alzheimer’s disease. “.
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