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As if Diabetes or Obesity or Heart Disease are not difficult enough to deal with alone or in combination, there are now research resuts that show the strong possibility these illnesses, especially when a person has two or more of them, increases the chances of dementia, AKA Alzheimer’s disease. Not only are the chances of contracting dementia more possible if an individual has one or all of these health issues, the dementia will develop more quickly than it would if these other diseases aren’t present.

One expert thinks that papers, published in the March issue of Neurology, deliver an important, strong message, which is that people can take steps to reduce their risk of developing dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. Since there has been little or no information available linking all these illness to dementia and Alzheimer’s, most individuals think about lifestyle factors in preventing heart disease, he says, but they do not think about losing mental abilities in addition to the other ilnesses.

It is important that this issue be front and center in talking about the fact that this may influence our risk of developing cognitive impairment and Alzheimer’s disease down the road.”

In one report, Dr. Kristine Yaffe, a professor at the University of California, San Francisco, and director of the Memory Disorders Clinic at the San Francisco Veterans Affairs Medical Center, found that among older women, obesity, high blood pressure and a low level of HDL, the “good” cholesterol — collectively labeled metabolic syndrome — were each associated with a 23 percent increase in risk for cognitive impairment.

Yaffe’s research team collected data on 4,895 women who averaged 66 years old and who had no cognitive impairment at the start of the study. Among the 497 women with metabolic syndrome, about 7 percent developed cognitive impairment, compared with 4 percent of the women without the condition.

“As the obesity and sedentary lifestyle epidemic escalates throughout the world, identification of the role of these modifiable behaviors in increasing risk for development of deleterious outcomes, such as cognitive impairment, is critical,” the authors concluded.

In a second study, Yaffe’s group found a cognitive risk for obese men, too. For that study, the researchers collected data on 3,054 older men and women.

Comparing people’s scores on tests given at the beginning of the study and again three, five and eight years later, the researchers discovered that obese men were more likely to show signs of cognitive decline. However, there was no correlation between obesity and cognitive decline among women, the study reported.

“The greatest dementia risk was found in underweight individuals at older ages,” the researchers concluded. “These findings suggest the predictive ability of BMI [body-mass index] changes across time.” They added that the findings “help explain the ‘obesity paradox’ as differences in dementia risk across time are consistent with physical changes in the trajectory toward disability.”
They found that people with higher total and LDL, or “bad,” cholesterol levels and diabetes had a more rapid cognitive decline after developing Alzheimer’s disease.

The study “provides further evidence for the role of vascular risk factors in the course of Alzheimer’s disease,” the researchers concluded. “Prevention or treatment of these conditions can potentially slow the course of Alzheimer’s disease.” Obesity, Diabetes and Heart Disease May Speed Dementia

More and more data are showing the connection between lifestyle and cognitive decline, Petersen stressed. “This series of articles underlines that,” he said. And people need to improve these lifestyle factors in middle age, he said.

“People should start paying attention now, regardless of your age or stage in life,” he said. “It may be when you are in midlife, when you are in your 40s or 50s, what you do then with respect to your lifestyle — your diet, your weight, your activity level — may have a bigger impact on what’s going to happen to you at age 70 and beyond than if you wait until you start getting a little forgetful or a little bit fuzzy.”

More information:

The U.S. National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke has more on dementia.