Thursday, December 11, 2025

Researchers Have Discovered 2 New Dementia Risk Factors

Today's blog is about risk factors that can contribute to dementia.Dementia is contributed to by a combination of risk factors, including age and genetics, as well as modifiable lifestyle factors like physical inactivity, smoking, and excessive alcohol use. There are things YOU can do to address most of them. Others, like a head injury, air pollution, hypertension or a hearing impairment can't be helped. But there are many others that can!


 

 Researchers Have Discovered 2 New Dementia Risk Factors. Here's What They Are.

Jillian Wilson, Huff Post, Nov 30, 2025,

Strides have been made in the world of dementia research compared with even just a few years ago. There’s now a blood test that can diagnose Alzheimer’s accurately 90% of the time, and more is understood about the factors (many of which are lifestyle habits) that can put you at higher risk for the condition.

In a new dementia report published in The Lancet journal by researchers who are part of The Lancet Commission, two new modifiable risk factors have been identified: high cholesterol after 40 and untreated vision loss.

In 2020, these same researchers determined 12 modifiable risk factors that are known to put folks at higher risk of developing dementia. These are:

  • Physical inactivity
  • Smoking
  • Excessive alcohol consumption
  • Air pollution
  • Head injury
  • Infrequent social contact
  • Less education
  • Obesity
  • Hypertension
  • Diabetes
  • Depression
  • Hearing impairment

According to the report, these 12 factors, along with the two new ones, account for 49% of dementia cases across the world. Researchers determined these two new risk factors by looking at recent meta-analyses and studies on the topics; they looked at 14 papers on vision loss and 27 on high cholesterol.

“It makes a lot of mechanistic sense,” said Dr. Arman Fesharaki-Zadeh, a behavioral neurologist and neuropsychiatrist at Yale Medicine in Connecticut. “A lot of these factors are very much interrelated.” (Fesharaki-Zadeh is not affiliated with the report.)

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I'm a simple guy who enjoys the simple things in life, especially our dogs. I volunteer for dog rescues, enjoy exercising, blogging, politics, helping friends and neighbors, participating in ghost investigations, coffee, weather, superheroes, comic books, mystery novels, traveling, 70s and 80s music, classic country music,writing books on ghosts and spirits, cooking simply and keeping in shape. You'll find tidbits of all of these things on this blog and more. EMAIL me at Rgutro@gmail.com - Rob

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