Study identifies 10 factors linked to Alzheimer’s risk written by James Kingsland on March 1, 2022 — Fact checked by Hannah Flynn
A new study appearing in The Lancet Digital Health finds
links between health conditions and Alzheimer’s risk. The study was an
observational study that highlighted 10 medical conditions associated with a
diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease up to 10 years later.
The conditions include known risk factors for the disease,
such as depression and hearing loss, and conditions with no links to the
disease, such as constipation.
People with dementia experience a progressive loss of their
ability to remember, think, and communicate effectively.
However, the changes in the brain that are responsible for
dementia may begin decades before its effects on cognition and behaviour become
apparent.
The World Health Organization (WHO) indicates that of the 55
million people worldwide living with dementia, 60–70% have Alzheimer’s disease.
Attempts to develop an effective treatment for Alzheimer’s
have met with little success. Researchers are increasingly turning their
attention to detecting the disease early.
The key to this strategy is to identify early, “modifiable”
risk factors that doctors can target with drugs or other interventions.
Researchers at the Paris Brain Institute in France have now
found statistical associations between 10 health conditions and a diagnosis of
Alzheimer’s disease up to 10 years later. Major depression was the earliest
condition to be associated with a subsequent diagnosis of Alzheimer’s,
appearing at least 9 years in advance.
Other conditions that the study linked to a later diagnosis
of Alzheimer’s included:
·
anxiety
·
constipation
·
abnormal weight loss
·
a type of arthritis called cervical spondylosis
·
reaction to severe stress
·
hearing loss
·
sleep disorders
·
They also showed that falls and fatigue had
links to Alzheimer’s risk.
The next step will be to determine whether these conditions
help cause the disease or whether they are early signs of changes in the brain
that are already happening.
Some of the conditions, such as depression, hearing loss,
and sleep disorders, are already known risk factors for Alzheimer’s. However,
this study was the first to identify constipation as a possible risk factor.
The link between the two conditions became apparent 7 years before the
diagnosis of Alzheimer’s.
Interestingly, constipation is also associated with
depression and is an established early sign of other brain diseases, such as
Lewy-body dementia and Parkinson’s disease.
Another recent study also found an association between
mental health conditions and dementia. In 2020, the Lancet Commission on
dementia added three new modifiable risk factors: excessive alcohol
consumption, head injury, and air pollution to its existing list, which
includes:
·
hypertension
·
smoking
·
obesity
·
depression
·
physical inactivity
·
diabetes
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