According to recent research that followed female participants for 20 years, seven healthy habits and lifestyle characteristics may help reduce the incidence of dementia. The American Heart Association’s “Life’s Easy 7” determinants of heart and brain health include:
- stay active
- eating healthy
- maintaining a healthy weight
- quit smoking
- maintaining healthy blood pressure
- lowering cholesterol
- maintaining low blood sugar
Pamela Rist, ScD, of Brigham & Women’s, said, “Since we now know that dementia can start in the brain decades before diagnosis, it’s important that we learn more about how your habits in middle age can lead to dementia in old age.” can affect your risk of Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, and a member of the American Academy of Neurology. “The good news is that making healthy lifestyle choices in middle age may reduce the risk of dementia later in life.”
The study included 13,720 female participants with an average age of 54 at the start of the study. After 20 years of follow-up, researchers looked at Medicare data to identify people diagnosed with dementia. Of the participants, 1,771 or 13% developed dementia. For each of the seven health factors, participants were given a score of zero for poor or intermediate health and one for ideal health, for a total possible score of 7. The mean score was 4.3 at the start of the study and 4.2 after 10 years. After adjusting for factors such as age and education, the researchers found that for every one-point increase in the score, a participant’s risk of dementia decreased by 6%.
“It can be empowering for people to know that by taking steps like exercising for half an hour a day or keeping their blood pressure under control, they can reduce their risk of dementia,” Rist said. A limitation of the study was that the researchers could not look at how changes in factors such as quitting smoking affected the risk of dementia later in life.