Another new study, involving 196,383 UK adults age 60 and older, has re-confirmed the importance of following healthy lifestyles for lowering your dementia risk — even if you have a high genetic risk for dementia. The study results showed a statistically significant difference: 1.13% of those with a healthy lifestyle developed dementia later in life compared with 1.78% of those with a less healthy lifestyle. The definition of healthy lifestyle included the following:

avoid smoking tobacco

be physically active

drink alcohol in moderation, or not at all

healthy diet: following recommendations on dietary priorities for cardiometabolic health

Here are three media articles on the study:

Your lifestyle can lower your dementia risk, even if you have high genetic risk, study says

Healthy lifestyle may offset genetic risk of dementia

Is healthy lifestyle associated with lower risk of dementia regardless of genetic risk?

The study was simultaneously presented at the 2019 Alzheimer’s Association International Conference together with JAMA publication here:

Association of Lifestyle and Genetic Risk With Incidence of Dementia

Another study presented at the Alzheimer’s Association Conference looked at similar issues. It tracked 2,765 individuals over about 10 years, rating them 1 point for maintaining each of the following healthy behaviors:

a low-fat diet

did not smoke

exercised at least 150 minutes each week at moderate-to-vigorous levels

drank moderately

engaged in some late-life cognitive activities

Those who rated 4 or 5 (i.e., participated in 4 or 5 of the healthy behaviors) were were 60% less likely to develop Alzheimer’s compared with participants who rated only 0 or 1 (i.e. participated in none or one of the healthy behaviors). The results did not vary by race or gender.

Here are two media articles on the work (formal publication is not yet available):

It May Be Possible to Counter Some of the Genetic Risk of Alzheimer’s With These Lifestyle Changes

Doing these five things could decrease your risk of Alzheimer’s by 60 percent, new study says

All links have been added to Alzheimers > Amelioration/Prevention, Alzheimers > RiskFactors, Alzheimers > Mental Exercise, Health > Diet, and to Health > Physical Exercise.