Smoking, high BP and diabetes in mid-life can lead to dementia
Middle-aged people who smoke, have high blood pressure or diabetes are far more likely to develop dementia in later life, new research has suggested.
Previous studies have shown that the presence of cardiovascular risk factors including high blood pressure, diabetes, obesity and smoking increase the risk of developing subsequent dementia, but have often failed to show the relationship.
Against that background, researchers in the United States studied more than 11,000 people aged 46-70 years who were participants in the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) study in 1990-92.
People underwent a physical examination and cognitive testing at that time and they were followed up until 2004 to see how many were hospitalised with dementia.
After following their progress, the researchers identified 203 cases of hospitalisation with dementia. Smoking, high blood pressure and diabetes were all strongly associated with dementia in white participants and African-Americans.
The results showed that rates of hospitalisation with dementia increased exponentially with age in men and women and in different ethnic backgrounds.
Overall, African-Americans had a two-and-a-half times higher rate of hospitalisation than white people, and African-American women — in particular — had the highest rates of all.
Current smokers were 70 per cent more likely than those who had never smoked to develop dementia, people with high blood pressure were 60 per cent more likely than those without high blood pressure, and people with diabetes were more than twice as likely than those without diabetes to develop it.
No association was found between people who were obese or overweight and dementia in later life.
The authors commented that the results suggested that smoking cessation and prevention or control of high blood pressure and diabetes starting in midlife may have the added benefit of decreasing dementia hospitalisation risk.
Online edition of Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry, available at:
http://press.psprings.co.uk/jnnp/august/jn176818.pdf
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