The Lancet review deals with formerly known risk factors and provides facts on to what extent each of them increases the likelihood of dementia progress.
Hypertension and obesity increase the risk of dementia by 60% (percentages aren’t added up, i.e., if a person has both, the increase won’t be 2 times or more). Here are the simple recommendations: monitor your systolic blood pressure and not let it go beyond the value of 130. In the case of obesity, try to lose weight.
Remember that after the age of 65, main dementia “accelerators” are depression (increases the likelihood of dementia by 90%), smoking (by 60%), and social isolation (also by 60%). Again, these factors shouldn’t be added up. Diabetes increases the risk of the “century disease” by 50%. And the lack of physical activity – less than 30 minutes of active movement, physical work, or exercises per day – by 40%.
