Taking care of your heart in middle age could also help protect your brain for years to come, with research finding that people who avoid several major cardiovascular risk factors may live substantially longer without developing dementia.
Researchers examining the connection between cardiovascular health and dementia focused on three major risk factors: high blood pressure, diabetes and smoking. People who reached their 50s without any of the three lived nearly 13 years longer without dementia than those who had all three, adding to evidence that brain health and cardiovascular health are closely connected.
The findings fit into a much larger body of research suggesting that dementia is not entirely beyond an individual’s influence. An international commission of dementia experts has estimated that addressing 14 potentially modifiable risk factors could prevent or delay about 45% of dementia cases. Those factors include high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, smoking, obesity, physical inactivity, hearing and vision loss, depression, social isolation and excessive alcohol consumption.
That doesn’t mean dementia can always be prevented. Age, genetics and other factors remain important, and someone who follows a healthy lifestyle can still develop Alzheimer’s disease or another form of dementia. But researchers increasingly believe that controlling blood pressure and diabetes, staying physically active, avoiding smoking, maintaining social connections and addressing hearing or vision problems can help reduce risk or delay when cognitive decline begins.
The message comes as new Alzheimer’s blood tests generate growing public interest. Some tests can detect biological markers associated with Alzheimer’s disease, but current clinical guidance generally focuses their use on people who already have cognitive symptoms and are undergoing evaluation rather than healthy adults seeking routine screening.
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The growing ability to detect Alzheimer’s-related changes through a blood test is an important medical advance, but dementia prevention may begin much earlier and with considerably more familiar tools. The choices people make in middle age about blood pressure, smoking, exercise and other aspects of everyday health could influence not only how long they live, but how many of those years they spend with a healthy brain.
