DEMENTIA: Still no cure, but plenty of scope to lower your risk
July 19, 2019 • 1 min read
-- Healthy lifestyles will help stave off many diseases, including dementia.
A study of nearly 200,000 people shows how living a healthy lifestyle can reduce the risk of dementia by up to a third – even when dementia runs in the family. The findings were revealed at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference.
Numbers tell the story
The study followed 196,383 people from the age of 64 for about eight years, analysing people’s DNA to assess their genetic risk of developing the disease.
The study showed there were 18 cases of dementia per 1,000 people if they were born with high risk genes and then led an unhealthy lifestyle. But that went down to 11 per 1,000 people during the study - if those high-risk people had a healthy lifestyle.
So, what counts as a healthy lifestyle?
Lifestyle scores were a function of exercise, diet, alcohol, and smoking. Someone who scored well didn’t smoke, cycled for two-and-a-half hours a week, ate a balanced diet that included more than three portions of fruit and vegetables a day, ate fish twice a week, rarely ate processed meat, and drank up to one pint of beer a day.
Not bad. Now flip the coin for an unhealthy lifestyle – smoker, couch potato, what’s that vege doing on my plate? MMM sausages, pass me another beer, love.
You know what to do.