July 16, 2019
While a person gets Alzheimer’s disease every three minutes in the UK, an English study shows that it is possible to reduce the risk of dementia by adopting a healthy lifestyle.
Risk reduced by a third
Researchers studied risk factors for Alzheimer’s disease in 196,383 people aged 60 and over. The University of Exeter team followed the participants for around 8 years and identified 1,769 people with dementia. The researchers analyzed the DNA of these people to assess their genetic risk of developing the disease.
The results revealed at the 2019 International Alzheimer’s Association Conference in Los Angeles are surprising. The researchers concluded that the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease was 32% lower in individuals who led a healthy lifestyle. The study reported 18 cases of dementia per 1,000 people who were born with a high risk of developing the disease and who had unhealthy lifestyles. With a healthy lifestyle, this proportion increased to 11 in 1,000 people.
A healthy lifestyle
To perform this study, participants were divided into three groups (high, medium or low), depending on their level of genetic risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease. The researchers then assigned participants a healthy lifestyle score based on four criteria: physical activity, diet, alcohol and tobacco consumption.
A typical participant with a healthy lifestyle eats a balanced diet consisting of more than three servings of fruits and vegetables per day and eats fish twice a week. This person limits himself to a pint of beer a day and rarely eats processed meat. She does not smoke and cycles two and a half hours a week. This study is the first to assess the extent to which lifestyle impacts the development of the disease. These encouraging results show that it is possible to act to minimize the genetic risk of dementia.
Stephanie Haerts
Read also: The stages of Alzheimer’s disease
