Here’s another reminder to follow a healthy lifestyle as you age: A new study suggests that improving your heart health may help reduce your risk of dementia, even if you are genetically predisposed to the disease.
In the study, researchers studied data from 1,211 participants in the Framingham Heart Study to look at the relationship between genetics, cardiovascular health, and dementia (which includes Alzheimer’s disease). The researchers found that participants with high genetic risk scores were 2.6 times more likely to develop dementia than those with low-risk scores.
They also found that good cardiovascular health can reduce a person’s chances of developing dementia by about 55% across the follow-up period, which was an average of 8.4 years. Having relatively poor cardiovascular health increased a person’s risk of developing dementia. Based on the data, improving your heart health may therefore reduce the risk of dementia, the researchers suggest. Their study, funded in part by NHLBI, appeared in the journal Neurology.