According to experts' grim forecasts, by 2050 the number of dementia patients will triple. However, this statistic can be significantly reduced by reconsidering the approach to disease prevention.
“It’s all written in one’s fate,” people often say about dementia. Many perceive senile dementia as something inevitable: if it is destined to happen, then it cannot be avoided.
However, research proves that millions of dementia cases can be prevented by making simple changes in one’s life.
Unfortunately, the forecasts are quite grim. It is expected that by 2050, the number of people with dementia worldwide will increase nearly threefold, reaching approximately 153 million.
The Lancet’s commission on dementia prevention, intervention, and care has identified 14 risk factors for Alzheimer’s disease that we can influence, thereby preventing nearly half of the cases:
- low level of education;
- hearing loss;
- high levels of low-density lipoprotein cholesterol;
- depression;
- traumatic brain injury;
- physical inactivity;
- diabetes;
- smoking;
- hypertension;
- obesity;
- excessive alcohol consumption in middle age;
- social isolation;
- air pollution;
- vision loss.
“Considering the simultaneous occurrence of these 14 factors, they are estimated to account for up to 45% of the global risk of developing dementia,” the study states.
Evaluating the mentioned risk factors, 40 British experts from Queen Mary University of London identified three main ones that most often lead to senile dementia: hearing loss, social isolation, and high blood pressure.
However, to influence these factors, healthcare systems, according to the scientists, must provide accessible hearing check services and universal access to hearing aids, an affordable social infrastructure to help combat social isolation, as well as effective measures for treating hypertension and high cholesterol levels in individuals over 40.
Experts emphasize that the risk of dementia accumulates over a lifetime and many risk factors are present decades before the disease manifests. At the same time, the authors believe that “public awareness of dementia risk factors remains low, and clear recommendations for brain health throughout life are rarely encountered.” In simpler terms, warnings are vague and sometimes overly complex.
“The information that people receive now is often confusing. And people need clear, evidence-based recommendations to protect brain health,” says one of the experts, Dr. Harriet Demnitz-King. “Coordinated structural actions are needed to develop a dementia prevention policy that is realistic and based on the real lives of people.”
