3 Things To Avoid, For +13 Dementia-Free Years

Some dementia-avoidance strategies are quite general, for example those we discussed in: How To Reduce Your Alzheimer’s Risk

Some are quite specific, such as: The Other Alzheimer’s Risk Factor

But, if you were to pick just 3 things to maximize your dementia-free years, what should those 3 things be?

The most bang-for-buck things to avoid

It’s easy to get snowed under with the inundation of things to do or not do, when it comes to brain health.

• Prioritize your sleep, but also don’t sleep too much
• Avoid being sedentary, but make sure to read plenty
• Take turmeric, but watch out for lead contamination
• Enjoy a strong social life, but don’t get infectious diseases
• Make sure to nourish your brain, but also don’t eat too often or too much at once

…and so on. It can be hard!

So, time to pick a focal point, and then what’s most important within that focus. Regular 10almonds readers will remember that we often say “what’s good for your heart is good for your brain”, and it’s because the former feeds the latter, with nutrients, oxygen, etc, and also ultimately takes away detritus (yes, it’s the glymphatic system that does it directly, but without good blood flow, there’s nowhere for it to usefully drain to).

With this in mind, researchers (Dr. Elizabeth Selvin et al.) analyzed data from 12,409 adults in the long-running Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) study, following participants for a median of 26.3 years to examine how three midlife vascular risk factors affected dementia-free survival.

The three vascular risk factors were:

• Hypertension
• Diabetes
• Smoking

Their results were as follows:

❝Compared with 0 risk factors, 3 risk factors were associated with higher hazards of dementia (hazard ratio [HR] 2.69, 95% CI 1.94–3.73) and death without dementia (HR 5.61, 95% CI 4.67–6.74). Higher vascular burden was associated with fewer dementia-free survival years, declining from 30.1 years (95% CI 29.9–30.4) for 0 risk factors to 17.5 years (95% CI 16.3–18.7) for 3 risk factors. Dementia cumulative incidence rose earlier but was lower by age 95 years in the highest-risk group because competing mortality was substantially greater. Women lived longer dementia-free than men (18.1 vs 16.6 years with 3 risk factors).❞

Translating from sciencese: participants with none of the three risk factors lived an average of 30.1 years without dementia after age 55, compared with 17.5 years for those with all three risk factors.

In other words: a difference of 12.6 years of dementia-free life.

Or in terms of risk increases: compared with people who had no risk factors, those with all three had a 2.69x higher risk of developing dementia and a 5.61x higher risk of dying.

Notably, women lived longer without dementia than men at every risk level. Among participants with all three risk factors, women averaged 18.1 dementia-free years, compared with 16.6 years for men.

You can read the paper in full, here: Midlife Vascular Risk Burden and Dementia-Free Survival Years

To calculate your own risk, see: What’s Your Vascular Dementia Risk? ← includes actual numbers and a risk calculator tool and things like that

And for what to do about those three risk factors, consider:

• Hypertension: Factors Far More Relevant Than Salt
• How To Prevent And Reverse Type 2 Diabetes
• Addiction Myths That Are Hard To Quit

Want to learn more?

For a much deeper dive, you might like this book that we reviewed a little while back:

Healthy Heart, Healthy Brain: The Personalized Path to Protect Your Memory, Prevent Heart Attacks and Strokes, and Avoid Chronic Illness – by Dr. Amy Doneen & Dr. Bradley Bale

Take care!