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Healthy Lifestyle Can Lower Dementia Risk


Mon 15 Jul 2019 | 09:55 AM
Yara Sameh

A healthy lifestyle and regular exercise don't just help you lose weight, but may also help lower your risk of dementia, even if you have a higher genetic risk, according to a new study.

 

There is no cure for dementia or a preventive medicine that can stop it, but there is a way people can lower its risk.

 

The study found that among people with a high genetic risk, those who maintained a healthy lifestyle were less likely to develop dementia later in life.

 

The study, published in the medical journal JAMA on Sunday, analyzed data from 196,383 adults aged 60 and older who lived in the UK and found a statistically significant difference.

 

The results showed that specifically, 1.13% of those with a healthy lifestyle developed dementia later in life compared with 1.78% of those with a less healthy lifestyle.

 

The adults who took part in the study joined it from 2006 to 2010 and researchers followed up with them until 2016 to 2017.

 

"This research is exciting in that it shows there are actionable things we can do to try to counteract a genetic risk for dementia," said Elzbieta Kuźma, a research fellow at the University of Exeter Medical School who worked on the study.