On 17 June, Dr. Klodian Dhana and colleagues published an article in the Neurology Journal, showing that people with several healthy lifestyle habits have a lower risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease.
The researchers analysed data from participants in two separate longitudinal studies: 1,845 participants in the Chicago Health and Ageing Project (CHAP) and 920 participants in the Rush Memory and Ageing Project (MAP). Both of these studies, which were funded by the US National Institute of Health, collected information on diet, lifestyle factors, genetics and cognitive function, with an average follow-up of 5.8 and 6 years, respectively. A healthy lifestyle score was assigned to each participant based on their smoking status (non-smoking = 1 point), level of physical activity (>150 minutes of moderate or vigorous activity per week = 1 point), alcohol consumption (light to moderate = 1 point), quality of diet (healthy mediterranean diet = 1 point) and engagement in late-life cognitive activities (1 point).
Statistical analyses showed that each additional healthy lifestyle factor conferred an average reduction in risk of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) of 27%. Compared to participants with 0 or 1 healthy lifestyle factor, those who had 2-3 healthy lifestyle factors had a 37% reduced risk of AD, increasing to a 60% reduced risk in those with 4-5 healthy lifestyle factors. Link to article: https://n.neurology.org/content/early/2020/06/16/WNL.0000000000009816
