Having a healthy heart at 50 ‘can help ward off dementia in old age’

A HEALTHY heart in middle age lowers the risk of developing dementia in later years, a study says.

Those who quit smoking, ate healthily and exercised in midlife boosted their chances of avoiding the condition.

The research, which looked at nearly 1,500 subjects of a long-term study, confirmed previous theories that behaviour such as diet and not smoking can benefit brain health in old age.

Lead author Yajun Liang, of the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden, said: ‘Maintaining life-long health behaviours may be crucial to reduce late-life risk of dementia. We observed that having the ideal CVH [cardiovascular health] metrics, and ideal behavioural CVH metrics in particular, from midlife onwards is associated with a reduced risk of dementia.’ Previous research suggested global dementia numbers could be cut by a third if modifiable risks were eliminated.

However, until the current study, which was published in the journal PLOS Medicine, there was a lack of evidence on potential links between the risk of late-life dementia and heart health in midlife and late life.

The team analysed data on 1, 9 participants in the Finnish Cardiovascular Risk Factors, Ageing and Dementia study, enrolled between 1972 and 1987 and assessed in 1998, starting from an average age of 50. A further 7 dementia-free survivors were studied again between 2005-2008.

Participants’ heart health was evaluated according to their smoking status, their physical activity and body mass index, and also blood sugar levels, total cholesterol and their blood pressure.

Dementia was diagnosed in 61 people in the first followup and in 7 more in the second check.

The researchers found participants with intermediate or ideal CVH scores from midlife onwards had a lower risk of dementia later in life.