As new evidence suggest that people who become obese, smoke or do little exercise are at greater risk of contracting dementia, UK ministers are advising people to go for exercising and healthy eating. Public Health England has confirmed that it is drawing up plans for a public awareness campaign aimed at ensuring people understand that the risk of developing Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia is strongly linked to lifestyle.
“It is early days yet but we are in talks with organisations involved in dementia care and research about a national campaign to explain how the risk of developing diseases is affected by lifestyle,” the agency said. The campaign is likely to be launched next year. Until recently dementia was seen as a disease largely independent of lifestyle. People marked out for the condition would develop it come what may; so, it was thought, there was no way to reduce risk.
The new evidence suggests this is true for the relatively few people who have a genetic propensity for the disease. Most cases, however, are not like this. Public Health England has already asked GPs to assess patients’ dementia risk during regular health checks - looking for warning signals such as blood pressure problems, irregular heartbeats or the early signs of type 2 diabetes - and then advise them on how to reduce the risk by changing their lifestyles.
The approach follows a series of scientific studies, including a landmark 2013 report from Cardiff University in which researchers studied the lifestyles of 2,235 men aged 45-59 over 35 years. It showed that non-smokers who took exercise, kept their weight down, drank little and ate well had a 60% drop in dementia and cognitive decline, as well as 70% fewer instances of diabetes, heart disease and stroke.
In Britain about 850,000 people, 40,000 of them under the age of 65, have dementia - costing the UK economy an estimated £26bn a year.
The number of patients is also rising - so fast that it is predicted to hit 2m by 2050 - potentially imposing a huge extra burden on the families of sufferers and on the NHS. Smoking is one key factor. Studies show it reduces oxygen flow to the brain and causes oxidative stress in cells.
Doug Brown, director of research and development at the Alzheimer’s Society, said: “What’s emerging is that what is good for your heart, in terms of lifestyle, is also good for your head. We don’t yet understand why this is so and we need to do more research on that.
“What is clear, however, is that we have enough evidence for us to put out messages around public health that looking after the factors that keep your heart healthy also reduces the risk of dementia.
