Updated:26/05/2022 03:14h
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Being active, eating better, losing weight, not smoking, maintaining healthy blood pressure, controlling cholesterol, and lowering blood sugar. These seven healthy habitsknown as the American Heart Association’s ‘Life’s Simple 7’, may play a role in reduced risk of dementia in people at increased genetic risk, according to research published in Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.
“These Life’s Simple 7 healthy habits have been linked to a lower risk of dementia overall, but it’s not clear if the same applies to people with a high genetic risk. The good news is that even for people who have the highest genetic risk, following the same healthier lifestyle is likely to carry a lower risk of dementia,” said Adrienne Tin, M.D., of the University of Mississippi Medical Center. in Jackson, and author of the study.
The study looked at 8,823 people of European descent and 2,738 people of African descent who were followed for 30 years, with an average age of 54 at the start of the study.
The participants reported their levels in each of the seven healthy habits. Total scores ranged from 0 to 14, with 0 representing the least healthy score and 14 representing the healthiest score. The mean score among people of European descent was 8.3 and among those of African descent it was 6.6.
The researchers calculated genetic risk scores at the start of the study using genome-wide statistics for Alzheimer’s disease that have been used to study genetic risk for dementia.
Participants with European descent were divided into five groups and those of African descent were divided into three groups based on genetic risk scores. The group with the highest genetic risk included people who had at least one copy of the APOE gene variant associated with Alzheimer’s disease, APOE e4. Of those with European ancestry, 27.9% had the APOE e4 variant, while of those with African ancestry, 40.4% had the APOE e4 variant. The group with the lowest risk had the variant APOE e2which has been associated with a decreased risk of dementia.
At the end of the study, 1,603 people of European descent developed dementia and 631 people of African descent developed dementia.
For participants with European ancestry, the researchers found that those with the highest scores in lifestyle factors had a lower risk of dementia in all five genetic risk groups, including the group with the highest genetic risk of dementia. For every one point increase in the lifestyle factor score, there was a 9% lower risk of developing dementia.
Among those with European ancestry, compared to the low category of the lifestyle factor score, the intermediate and high categories were associated with a 30% and 43% lower risk of dementia, respectively. Among those of African descent, the intermediate and high categories were associated with a 6% and 17% lower risk of dementia, respectively.
Among people of African descent, the researchers found a similar pattern of decreased dementia risk in all three groups among those with higher scores on lifestyle factors. But the researchers caution that the smaller number of participants in this group limited the findings, so more research is needed.
“Larger sample sizes from diverse populations are needed to obtain more reliable estimates of the effects of these modifiable health factors on dementia risk within different genetic risk groups and ancestral backgrounds,” says Tin.
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