Murugesu was written by Jason Arunn.
A healthy lifestyle can lower the risk of dementia.
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A study in the US suggests that people with a high genetic risk for dementia can reduce their risk by living a healthy lifestyle.
The data from more than 11,000 people in the US was used by Tin and her colleagues. The participants had an average age of 54 at the start of the study and were followed for 26 years. Of these people, 8823 were of European descent and 2738 were of African descent.
The researchers used seven health factors to create a score for each person. To stop smoking, eat a healthy diet, maintain a healthy weight, remain physically active, and to control blood sugar levels, cholesterol levels and blood pressure are some of the things that these are. The team combined these factors into a single score on a 14-point scale, with 0 being the least healthy and 14 the healthiest.
The American Heart Association promotes these factors as a way to maintain good cardiovascular health. Tin says that previous studies show that improving your health in any of these areas can reduce the likelihood of developing dementia.
The researchers wanted to see if this was still true for those who are most at risk of developing dementia due to their genetics.
The team used genome-wide association studies to assess each person's genetic risk for developing dementia, and then used the information to split the participants into groups based on how high their risk was. Those in the highest risk group were more likely to develop the disease than those in the lowest risk group.
The researchers found that people of European descent in the highest genetic risk group could reduce the likelihood of developing dementia by 8 per cent if they increased their healthy lifestyle score on the 14-point scale.
Tin says the researchers can't be certain about their conclusions due to the smaller sample size. The team found that people of African descent who scored between 9 and 14 in the lifestyle assessment had a 17 percent lower risk of dementia than people who scored between 0 and 6.
There were no differences in the results between African and European ancestry.
The study found that a higher Life's Simple 7 score in midlife is associated with lower risk for dementia.
She says the next step is to figure out what social factors might prevent people from making their lifestyles healthier.
The results show that we can all take steps to reduce the risk of dementia.
The charity Alzheimer's Research UK says the results are good news, but that it is not certain whether healthy habits will last for the rest of the study.
She says that future studies should include monitoring health habits in the participants to assess long-term effects of a healthy lifestyle.
There is a journal reference to Neurology.
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