The 14 factors that dictate your dementia risk

The idea that we might one day suffer from dementia is a frightening one—but it’s a condition that can be avoided.

Around half of all cases are preventable by adopting better lifestyle choices, a major new commission has concluded.

The biggest risk in older age is social isolation—which increases our risk by around 5 percent—and so joining a community group could be one way to keep dementia at bay.  In middle-age, losing our hearing—and not getting it treated—and having high LDL cholesterol are the two biggest risk factors, each increasing the chances of dementia in old age by around 7 percent, says the Lancet Commission on Dementia.

In all, there are 14 risk factors that increase our chances of developing dementia, and two of these—vision loss and high cholesterol—are new ones that have been added since the publication of the previous report four years ago.

The 12 others are: poor education when we’re young, hearing loss, depression, traumatic brain injury, inactivity, diabetes, smoking, hypertension, obesity and excessive drinking in middle-age, and, in addition to social isolation, air pollution and blindness or vision loss in old age.

Dealing with all these factors would reduce the rate of dementia by around 45 percent, the researchers estimate.  Dementia isn’t an inevitable consequence of getting old, even if our parents or grandparents suffered from it.

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