Fight Aging!

The research noted here stands in opposition to the present consensus on dementia, which is that incidence will increase as other age-related diseases are increasingly controlled. Many people avoid dementia because other conditions kill them first, particularly heart disease. If given additional years of life thanks to improved therapies, then some will later suffer dementia. However, it appears that the improvements in vascular health in old age that have reduced the impact of heart disease also have the effect of significantly reducing dementia incidence. A large fraction of the causes of dementia is a matter damage and dysfunction of the blood vessels in the brain, leading to slow, incremental structural damage to brain tissue.

Despite the concern of an explosion of dementia cases in an aging population over the next few decades, a new study, based on data from the Framingham Heart Study (FHS), suggests that the rate of new cases of dementia actually may be decreasing. It is believed that the number of Americans with Alzheimer's disease and other dementias will grow each year as the size and proportion of the U.S. population age 65 and older continues to increase. By 2025 the number of people age 65 and older with Alzheimer's disease is estimated to reach 7.1 million - a 40 percent increase from the 5.1 million aged 65 and older affected in 2015. By 2050, the number of people in this age population with Alzheimer's disease may nearly triple, from 5.1 million to a projected 13.8 million, barring the development of medical breakthroughs to prevent or cure the disease.

FHS participants have been continuously monitored for the occurrence of cognitive decline and dementia since 1975. Thanks to a rigorous collection of information, FHS researchers have been able to diagnose Alzheimer's disease and other dementias using a consistent set of criteria over the last three decades. Researchers looked at the rate of dementia at any given age and attempted to explain the reason for the decreasing risk of dementia over a period of almost 40 years by considering risk factors such as education, smoking, blood pressure and medical conditions including diabetes, high blood pressure or high cholesterol among many others.

Looking at four distinct periods in the late 1970s, late 1980s, 1990s and 2000s, the researchers found that there was a progressive decline in incidence of dementia at a given age, with an average reduction of 20 percent per decade since the 1970s, when data was first collected. The decline was more pronounced with a subtype of dementia caused by vascular diseases, such as stroke. There also was a decreasing impact of heart diseases, which suggests the importance of effective stroke treatment and prevention of heart disease. Interestingly, the decline in dementia incidence was observed only in persons with high school education and above.

Link: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2016-02/bumc-nsr020916.php