A third of Alzheimer's disease cases worldwide can be attributed to risk factorss that can be potentially modified, such as lack of education and physical inactivity, according to NIHR-funded research published in The Lancet Neurology today.
Current estimates suggest that by 2050, more than 106 million people will be living with Alzheimer's disease, a huge increase on the 30 million people affected by the disease in 2010. Alzheimer's disease is caused by a complex interplay of genetic and lifestyle factors. Amongst the greatest lifestyle factors are lack of exercise, smoking, poor educational attainment and depression, all of which can be targeted to reduce the risk.
A study published in 2011 suggested that as many as one in two cases of Alzheimer's could potentially be prevented by modifying lifestyle factors. However, this study treated the risk factors as being independent of one another. In today's study, led by Professor Carol Brayne from the Cambridge Institute of Public Health at the University of Cambridge and involving co-authors from the 2011 study, this estimate has been lowered to one in three cases.
The seven key risk factors for which there is consistent evidence of an association with the disease are diabetes, midlife hypertension, midlife obesity, physical inactivity, depression, smoking, and low educational attainment. The researchers estimate that by reducing the relative risk from each of these risk factors by 10%, it will be possible to reduce the prevalence of Alzheimer's in 2050 by 8.5%, preventing 9 million cases.
http://medicalxpress.com/news/2014-07-cases-alzheimer-worldwide-potentially.html
Summary in The Lancet Neurology:Ā Potential for primary prevention of Alzheimer's disease: an analysis of population-based data
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