Want to keep your brain sharp as you age?
Three simple characteristics in middle age likely play a major role in cognitive health as you get older, a new study suggests.
In fact, researchers found that people who check these three boxes lived about 30 years without dementia — compared to 17 years for people who didn’t.
The researchers found that people who avoided smoking, high blood pressure (aka hypertension) and diabetes had nearly 13 more years without developing dementia than those who did have these three risk factors.
“Our findings argue that people need to actively avert these factors in midlife as a strategy for preserving brain health,” said the study’s senior investigator Dr. Josef Coresh, director at NYU Langone’s Optimal Aging Institute. “Discovering new ways to delay dementia is crucial with 42 percent of Americans at risk for developing the condition at any time after age 55.”
While avoiding these elements is associated with more time without cognitive decline, some populations are more at risk than others.
Vascular health and brain health
Dementia is not a disease in itself — it’s a collection of symptoms that can come from different causes.
Vascular dementia, the second most common cause, happens when blood flow is blocked or reduced, limiting oxygen to the brain and damaging tissue.
Poor blood flow could also play a role in developing Alzheimer’s, which is caused by toxic proteins accumulating in the brain that would normally be carried away by healthy blood vessels.
Smoking, diabetes, and hypertension are three of the biggest risk factors affecting the blood vessels.
Hypertension happens when blood pushes too much against walls of arteries, which can cause tiny tears that catch fat and cholesterol, causing build up and blocking blood flow.
Diabetes also causes tears because of high sugar in the blood: The body tries to patch damage with cholesterol and other material, causing plaque to build up and block blood flow.
Smoking, meanwhile, heightens risk for both hypertension and diabetes.
Luckily, people have a lot of control in these factors. Quit smoking, limit alcohol, keep a balanced diet that limits salt and sugar, keep active with aerobic exercises and stay at a healthy body weight to avoid both high blood pressure and diabetes.
How sex and race play into dementia risk
Risk isn’t spread evenly across different demographics.
On average, women who had all three risk factors lived 18.1 years on average from the start of the study without developing dementia. In comparison, men developed dementia sooner – at 16.6 years.
While they might have more time without dementia, women do have a higher lifetime risk of developing it compared to men. Age is the biggest risk factor for dementia — and women simply live longer.
Differences were even more stark with race. White participants lived 19.6 years without developing dementia while Black participants only saw 16 years without dementia symptoms.
Research shows that Black Americans are also more likely to get diagnosed later, which means dementia symptoms are worse and they require more serious care.
“These results suggest that vascular risk reduction may benefit all groups, but that certain populations, such as Black adults, may especially benefit from targeted prevention efforts,” Coresh said “Hopefully, these results will encourage people to stop smoking and watch their vascular health closely from age 45 on.”
