Healthy hearts equal healthy minds, according to World Alzheimer Report

It is never too late to make positive lifestyle changes to improve your mental and physical wellbeing. This is the key message to take from the sixth annual World Alzheimer Report released last week.

Conducted by Alzheimer’s Disease International, the peak umbrella body for Alzheimer’s associations around the world, the report looks at the modifiable risk factors associated with dementia in the domain of lifestyle, psychology, development and cardiovascular conditions.

Just in time for World Alzheimer’s Day on Sunday, the report produced persuasive evidence to link risk prevention strategies for heart disease, and other non-communicable diseases, with those for dementia.

The report found that control over diabetes and high blood pressure, as well as strategies to encourage people to quit smoking and reduce heart disease, could contribute to a decreased risk of dementia later in life.

There was also strong evidence to connect the incidence of dementia with a lack of education in early life and hypertension in mid-life.

More exercise, less smoking, a healthy diet and an active social life are just some of the suggestions presented by the authors of the report to address these risk factors and reduce the global incidence of dementia.

Alzheimer’s Disease International executive director Marc Wortmann said that while it is important to recognise that most of the risk factors for dementia overlap with those for other major non-communicable disease, low and middle income countries have a higher risk of dementia because they do not yet have the same focus on healthier lifestyles as high income countries.

“By 2050, we estimate that 71% of people living with dementia will live in these regions (low income countries), so implementing effective public health campaigns may help to reduce the global risk,” Mr Wortmann said.

Author of the report and academic at King’s College London’s Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience Professor Martin Prince said we need to do all we can to accentuate the trends of high income countries where the incidence of dementia may be falling due to better education opportunities and improved cardiovascular health.

“With a global cost of over US$600 billion, the stakes could hardly be higher,” Professor Prince said.