healthy lifestyle can prevent HALF of all Alzheimer's cases as a million expected to suffer from disease within a decade

[Doz]

healthy lifestyle can prevent HALF of all Alzheimer's cases as a million expected to suffer from disease within a decade



Half of all Alzheimer’s disease cases could be prevented by lifestyle changes such as exercise, eating healthily and not smoking, claim researchers.

They say hundreds of thousands of patients could potentially avoid the devastating illness by simply changing bad habits.

Around 820,000 people in Briton suffer from dementia, of whom half have Alzheimer’s, and this is expected to rise to a million within the next ten years.

For the first time, scientists have calculated the extent to which certain lifestyle traits – including lack of exercise, smoking and obesity – all contribute to the disease.

Researchers found that in the Western world, an inactive ‘couch potato’ lifestyle was the most important possible cause.

Smoking, obesity in middle-age, high blood pressure and diabetes all increased the risk. Together, the modifiable risk factors contributed to 50 per cent of Alzheimer’s cases worldwide.

The study, published in the journal Lancet Neurology, found that not going to secondary school also made developing the disease more likely.

The researchers did not explain why education was important in reducing the risk of dementia, but it backs up several major studies that have found that spending years at school and university appeared to protect against memory loss in old age.

Scientists speculate that intense studying may make the brain better equipped to cope with the symptoms.

The Alzheimer’s Society has predicted that by 2021 there will be more than a million Britons living with dementia and this will rise to 1.7million by 2050. The numbers are expected to soar as more people live until their 80s and 90s, when they are at highest risk.

But there is now growing evidence that the disease may be partly caused by unhealthy diets, smoking, high blood pressure and cholesterol as they cause damage to blood vessels in the brain, leading to death of brain cells.

The researchers want to carry out more work to find out how many people can prevent the disease by making small changes to their lifestyle.

Lead researcher Deborah Barnes, associate professor of psychiatry at the University of California in San Francisco, said certain causes would be more important in different countries.

In the U.S. and UK, for example, most people go to secondary school but many will lead sedentary ‘couch potato’ lifestyles – so a lack of exercise may be more important.



Dr Barnes, who presented the findings at the Alzheimer’s Association international conference in France, said: ‘In our study, what mattered most was how common the risk factors were in the population. For example, in the U.S., about one third of the population is sedentary, so a large number of Alzheimer’s cases are potentially attributable to physical inactivity.

‘Worldwide, low education was more important because literacy rates are lower or people are not educated beyond elementary school.

‘Smoking also contributed to a large percentage of cases.’

Rebecca Wood, chief executive of Alzheimer’s Research UK, said: ‘If further research can prove that the observed risks are causes, then simple changes like quitting smoking and taking regular exercise could have an enormous impact.’

Even a mild brain injury such as concussion can raise the risk of developing dementia in later life, research has shown.



Those who suffer knocks to the head through their job or by playing sport could be raising their chance of developing Alzheimer’s, studies suggest. The findings challenge the view that only moderate or severe brain injuries predispose people to dementia.

They could have significant consequences for troops who have suffered mild brain injuries and also raise issues for contact sports such as boxing and rugby.

The findings came from two U.S. studies which looked into the effect of brain injuries on Army veterans and former American football players.

Researchers reviewed records of 281,000 veterans who sought hospital care. Over seven years, more than 15 per cent of those who had suffered a brain injury were diagnosed with dementia, versus only 7 per cent of those who had suffered other injuries.

The other study involved 4,000 retired American football players, with 35 per cent of over-50s found to have ‘significant cognitive problems’.


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