by Isabella Colonna
For September we selected Livingston G, Huntley J, Liu KY, Costafreda SG, Selbæk G, Alladi S, Ames D, Banerjee S, Burns A, Brayne C, Fox NC, Ferri CP, Gitlin LN, Howard R, Kales HC, Kivimäki M, Larson EB, Nakasujja N, Rockwood K, Samus Q, Shirai K, Singh-Manoux A, Schneider LS, Walsh S, Yao Y, Sommerlad A, Mukadam N. Dementia prevention, intervention, and care: 2024 report of the Lancet standing Commission. Lancet. 2024 Aug 10;404(10452):572-628. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(24)01296-0. Epub 2024 Jul 31. PMID: 39096926.
The number of people living with dementia is steadily rising, making it more urgent than ever to identify and implement effective prevention strategies.
This work updates the 2020 Lancet Commission report in which twelve risk factors for dementia were identified, using a life-course approach: i.e., less education, hearing loss, hypertension, smoking, obesity, depression, physical inactivity, diabetes, excessive alcohol consumption, traumatic brain injury, air pollution, and social isolation. In this recently published report, two more risk factors, i.e. untreated vision loss and high LDL cholesterol, have been added as risk factors for dementia in midlife and late life, respectively.
The authors showed that there is a high potential for prevention, since nearly half of dementia could theoretically be prevented by eliminating these 14 risk factors. This potential is even greater in low socioeconomic and minority groups, where modifiable risk factors are more prevalent compared to high-income countries. Moreover, the risk can be reduced even in individuals with increased genetic predisposition for dementia.
These findings underscore the need for widespread interventions aimed at modifying these 14 risk factors throughout the life course, since “it is never too early or too late to reduce dementia risk”. Dementia prevention must be a global priority, involving both policy changes at national and international levels and targeted individual actions, with a focus on equity in order to ensure that individuals at high risk are not left behind.
