August 25, 2023
11 key risk factors for dementia.
According to a study reported in The London Times: "being aged over 60, living alone, poor education, having parents with dementia, being from a deprived background, male sex, having diabetes, depression, stroke, high blood pressure and high cholesterol."
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My grandmother, who died from Alzheimer's, had 4 of those.
They forgot... current resident of New Palestine, OH.
Just like Joe Biden and Pete did.
I'll add one not on the list.
Refusing to treat hearing loss.
That's what took out my mother. She withdrew from people, because she could no longer hear, to participate conversations.
For what ever her reasons, we could not get her to consent to hearing aides.
That list makes me think the study that produced it is lousy. "Key risk factors" reads more like "11 traits we found correlated to dementia, and number 4 and 6 are conflicting".
Correlation is not causation. Causation may work either way: (1) these risk factors may cause dementia, or (2) they may follow from the genetic probability to eventually have dementia baked in at birth. If so, genetics may also predict many of the other issues long before dementia sets in.
But equity... But I demand to control my destiny... But I hate fatalism... (sigh)
My instinct, as a non-medical expert, is that poor nutrition (low protein) plus vitamin and mineral deficiencies greatly speeds mental declines with age.
High cholesterol?
Except for living alone, poor education, and male sex, I have two aunts in their nineties with all of the other risk factors. The 92 year old is still as sharp as a tack, and the 98 year old has only slowed down a little.
Any what do they mean by “poor education” anyway? They grew up extremely poor in the inner city, yet got a better education than my local middle class public school system has today. I guess that’s a credit to the Catholic education system - at least how it used to be.
Well, my youngest son moves away to college today. There's another strike against me. My father got a bit muddle-headed in his final months, but not demented. And he was 99 years old, so perhaps I'm not doomed.
According to a study reported in The London Times: "being aged over 60, living alone, poor education, having parents with dementia, being from a deprived background, male sex, having diabetes, depression, stroke, high blood pressure and high cholesterol."
They left out 'watching BBC News,' or on our side of the Atlantic, CNN etc.
They left off taking statins.
For the second time, there are other forms of dementia besides Alzheimer’s.
8 out of 12:
It'll be a relief
@ Leland - "having parents with dementia"(4) and "male sex"(6) are contradictory?
What if I "identify" as male? Still a risk factor? If there is a male sex, is there such a thing as "female" sex? Why are they only suggesting the two? That highly suggests there are only males and females. How DARE THEY!
Both my mother and my MIL had dementia. Mom's dementia was not that advanced when she died of an e-coli infection. MIL's dementia was very advanced. She didn't know where she was when she died. Both were in their 90s when they passed.
Always remember to never forget…
I'm never sure these days if my short responses online are because I'm going insane or because everyone still has a knee jerk reaction to what I offer (as the NewAge grinds America into the dust) until I just don't give a damn anymore. I know the evidence is clear enough that I don't have to change my position, so I figure it's the latter, and people are just too stupid to save themselves.
#12
Being a Democrat.
current resident of New Palestine, OH.
Just like Joe Biden and Pete did.
An aborted pipeline, progressive rail traffic, and a secretary of trans/portation.
Rusty said...
"#12
Being a Democrat."
True, but Independents would be Republicans if the GOP was as good as they make it sound.
@Rusty, not quite. The risk factor is if your doctor is a Democrat.
@Smerdyakov, people with high cholesterol are typically put on statins. Dementia is a known side effect from statins, and among people I know or have known (i.e., they are deceased) and who are/were in their late 70s or 80s, 100% of those taking statins developed dementia. YMMV
Honestly, if you live long enough as a man, you're going to end up with at least some of these things.
Crack had the best line. And...I get it.
Watch it all play out in the next episode of Dementia Joe Biden: Commander of the Cabana.
Any what do they mean by “poor education” anyway?
========
if poor does not = bad then they mean when the poor get educated they develop dimentia?
Roger Sweeny said...
@ Leland - "having parents with dementia"(4) and "male sex"(6) are contradictory?
=========
parents = father [male] + mother [female]
so if not contradictory then not fully inclusive?
Treated hypertension? Treated high cholesterol?
Shouldn't that read "having HAD parents with dementia"? If you're over 60, still have your parents, and they have dementia, your own dementia may be a defense mechanism.
Agree completely with @Iowan2: hearing loss is a huge and under-appreciated factor, especially for the elderly who live alone.
I don't know. My dad has 3 of these things (over 60, male, high blood pressure). He may have had a micro-stroke. He has dementia, but not Alzheimers. My uncle has 3 of those things, and he does have Alzheimers.
Big Mike is right, there are many forms of dementia and I don't know if these studies/reporters just use them interchangeably, or if that's all they are studying. I hope not.
“What if I "identify" as male? Still a risk factor? If there is a male sex, is there such a thing as "female" sex? Why are they only suggesting the two? That highly suggests there are only males and females. How DARE THEY!”
I would ask whether you were taking hormone replacement therapy to main your delusion. Unless you really are male, since I fall into both categories.
One of the fascinating things about aging is that females age quicker sexually, but men tend to age more quickly in terms of things that determine longevity. My father became the oldest man in our church in his mid eighties. And there were a number of women his age surviving. Why do women outlive men, esp since throughout the animal kingdom, there tends to be little Darwinian pressure after ceasing to be able to produce offspring? One theory is that grandmothers are more useful than grandfathers in terms of perpetuating the species.
being from a deprived background
I don't have a subscription to that site, but what does this mean? It seems to muddy the water.
My Dad was just diagnosed with Lewy body dementia, which is pretty much Alzheimer's + Parkinson's. Plain dementia seems like a better deal.
Blogger Roger Sweeny said...
@ Leland - "having parents with dementia"(4) and "male sex"(6) are contradictory?/
Parents suggest both mother and father have dementia, so is "male sex" really a higher risk factor?
To be open about this, my mother is currently suffering from dementia is in a euphemistically named "memory care" unit, because she is no longer capable of caring for herself in her own home. Her mother died of dementia at age 99, because she finally reached the point that she just would not eat. My father died a bit too young after throwing a blood clot after a successful cardiac surgery with no signs of dementia nor a family history of it. My maternal grandfather died of a stroke at an age old enough to detect dementia but with no other signs of it, and moreover, my grandfather had gone to work that morning. So in my own personal medical history, I could say my sister has more to worry about than me. If I believed that, most people would point out the fallacy of my thinking, but I hope they wouldn't be relying on this study.
@ Leland - But "male sex" is about the person who might get dementia, not the person's parent.
I was conservator for my Oma (father's mother) for four years, until she died at 94. She had dementia, and was no fun to be around. My mother lived to be 91 and was just crazy (with a lot of assistance from meds) but never diagnosed with dementia.
My wife has some bad loss of hearing, but has tech to help and stays more social media active than I will ever be.
My own score on the list is 1, 4?, 6, 7, 10, 11, and now I have to worry about statins.
Oh, for fuck's sake. This mostly is a list that misconstrues cause and effect.
Cholesterol is a precursor to Vitamin D. Separately, cholesterol tends to accumulate near inflammatory conditions, which may be the cause of its poor perception.
The first six (over 60, living alone, poor education, having parents with dementia, being from a deprived background and male sex) could lead a person to having no purpose and being depressed. A depressed person can't care, which leads to diabetes, stroke, high blood pressure and high cholesterol.
Early screening isn't going to help. It isn't a medical problem, but a social or cultural issue. These guys need to be needed by someone.
While spending time in Osaka, I noticed these guys that seemed to be parking attendants. They all seemed to be older, but very spiffy. White gloves, officer's hat, whistle on a cord that was buckled under their epaulets. They weren't doing anything that we would think needed to be done, but they did the shit out of it.
For instance, if a car was leaving the lot, a guy would stand in front of the car, look both ways, move to the side, blow his whistle, and gesture for the car to depart. There was not a lot of traffic or other reason for them to be necessary. There were three of them working at a time, and it seemed odd. I don't know if that was a make-work job to keep them busy, but they were dignified and engaged.
People are a resource, not a commodity. Dumb guys are the easiest to replace with automation, but we must have some problems these guys could help with.
“and people are just too stupid to save themselves”
See Joe Biden!
Ya’ know Crack! You are preaching to the choir!
I'd love to read it, but subscribe to the London Times? Nope.
My Dad??........”old soldiers just fade away”.
"Any what do they mean by “poor education” anyway?"
I'm guessing that's just a stand-in for a disinclination to read and be intellectually curious and, hence, mentally active. So, yeah, CNN.
I only hit three of the 11 so I'm feeling pretty invulnerable. Just like I did mumble, mumble years ago as a teenager. That said, this list strikes me as a joke. Most are correlated with old age in general and hardly predictive.
Long story short, they have no idea. If they did, they would know how to prevent it or cure it. They don't. My wife and my mother both died with it, and Medical Science was no help at all.
Getting old is kind of an adventure isn't it. Wondering how it'll all go down.
Just don't tell me how the story ends.
We are social creatures. Sum it up, the cause is hiding away from fear of embarrassment caused by getting old and useless.
So not having a family with children and children’s children and not having a church attendance is the killer. Everybody knows that. Saying it out loud is not that hard.
That is a terrible study in so many ways that it should not be treated seriously, but apparently has been used to generate a "screening tool" which gives the medical community in GB yet another means of population control to suit their own conceptions of good and bad, right and wrong.
hearing loss is a huge and under-appreciated factor, especially for the elderly who live alone.
My father had both severe hearing loss and some degree of dementia (the latter only starting in his late 80s). He did not hesitate to treat the hearing loss, though there wasn't much to do other than get better and stronger hearing aids. The deafness made it very difficult to tell how much of his challenges were from that versus dementia.
Blogger BUMBLE BEE said...
They forgot... current resident of New Palestine, OH.
Just like Joe Biden and Pete did.
It is not a good sign that BUMBLE forgot that Isaiah Wartman, the manager of the 2020 campaign that launched the far-right politician Marjorie Taylor Greene to Congress has been ordered to pay $25,000 for his role in a charity scam aimed at capitalizing on the Norfolk Southern train crash in East Palestine.
I wonder if Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg are supposedly at fault for the deaths of Lahaina residents as well?
Women are twice as likely to develop Alzheimer's. Why was that risk factor omitted?
@ Roger, I didn't consider that you might have two fathers and no mother.
Interesting article. What was it about again?
“I wonder if Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg are supposedly at fault for the deaths of Lahaina residents as well?”
Well… Biden is guilty of not caring a whit and Petey Buttedgeedge was chest-feeding and dreaming of the next transportation-related incident to not respond to.
I wonder if Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg are supposedly at fault for the deaths of Lahaina residents as well?
@gadfly, nope. Democrat politicians much lower on the food chain were 100% responsible. Since you think you know everything about everything, perhaps you can answer the following questions .
(1). Why did Deputy Director for Water Resource Management M. Kaleo Manuel refuse to release water to fight the fires for five hours — waiting until flames made it physically impossible to activate the valve so that the firefighters could get that water?
(1a). Why did people who describe themselves as Manuel’s “supporters” throw a party for him days after his told in the fatal fire was revealed, piling so many leis around his neck he could barely see over them?
(2) Why did no one in Emergency Management think to evacuate the Hale Mahaolu Eono senior-living complex, even though it was one of the first major buildings to burn down? I understand the reasoning —,however faulty to the point of being specious it may have been — behind not turning on the sirens. But how do you ignore an entire building full of seniors, some confined to wheelchairs?
(3) Why was the only safe road out of Lahaina blocked by a police barricade?
The problem with Lahaina isn’t that it shows the incompetence of Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg. It’s that it shows the rot in the Democrat Party extends from one end of the country to the other, and all the way down to the bottom.
Some guy who managed something was connected to some person who knew a friend of the guy that has strange politics and Ohio to boot, therefore Alzheimer's.
Regale us with the progress reports of the cleanup there shoofly.
You can't discern topics, you are well on your way!
Please link to the study. I don't care where it was linked from and am not subscribed.
the big correlates of dementia 14 years from measurement are diabetes, parents' dementia, depression, stroke, APOE4 (rs429358) genotype (minor: blood pressure, male, poverty, age, high cholesterol) https://mentalhealth.bmj.com/content/26/1/e300719
"male sex" : gays hard hit.
ha ha ha
save your brains and cut off your balls!
I went to grad school at a state flagship U so I am worried about my poor education, relative to those picked to go to the good schools.
Lots of misinformation about statins and dementia being posted. Actually if you need one, take it - cardiovascular benefits are clear and dementia downside is equivocal. Stay with one that it hydrophilic.
https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/do-statins-increase-the-risk-of-dementia
Josephbleau says, "I went to a state flagship U so I am worried about my poor education, relative to those picked to got to the good schools."
I know what you mean. If only I had gone to one of those legendary "good prep schools way out in the country" first . . .
Then my eventual dementia would be of a higher quality.
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