As many as seven healthy habits can help in lowering cases related to dementia among people with the highest hereditary risk, research by American Institute of Neurology has said. The findings have been published in the journal ‘Neurology’.
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These seven factors called the American Heart Association’s Life’s Simple 7 include – eating better, being active, not smoking, losing weight, controlling cholesterol, reducing blood sugar and maintaining healthy blood pressure.
Speaking about the research, study author Adrienne Tin from the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson said, “These healthy habits in Life’s Simple 7 have been linked to a lower risk of dementia overall, but it is uncertain whether the same applies to people with a high genetic risk.”
He added, “The good news is that even for people who are at the highest genetic risk, living by this same healthier lifestyle the are likely to have a lower risk of dementia.” For the study, researchers conducted tests on nearly 8,823 people with European ancestry and 2,738 people with African ancestry in last 30 years. At the beginning of the study, the average age of people was 54.
People who participated in the study reported their conditions in all seven factors related to health. While the lowest score range was 0 the highest was 14. Among European ancestry, the average was 8.3, among African ancestry it was 6.6.
Based on genetic risk scores, the team of researchers, at the start of the study, used genome-wide statistics of Alzheimer’s disease in order to calculate genetic risk scores, which were used in the study’s genetic risk for dementia. Researchers divided participants with European ancestry into five groups, while those of African ancestry were three groups. The group that had highest genetic risk had one copy of the APOE gene variant that is linked ti Alzheimer’s disease known as APOE e4. Among European ancestry, 27.9 per cent had the APOE e4 variant. Among African ancestry, 40.4 percent of people had the same variant.