Hello everyone!

Today I've read a news article about dementia. It was on the national Flemish news platform (VRT) which is ofcourse in Dutch. As I don't have such a big Dutch following, I'll just talk about what was mentioned in the article but ofcourse translate it to English as more people will understand that. Apparently there has been a new publication in 'The Lancet' which is a well-known Journal with health related articles published in it. You can find the original article here. That's it as introduction, now onto the real topic: What has an influence on Dementia?

Factors which increase the chanche of getting dementia

I first want to note that it isn't my research, that's why I link the official article as published in The Lancet. I will try to bring it in human language rather than in 'scientific language'. For those known with scientific papers, feel free to check out the original article! The topic of the article is about factors influencing the chanche of getting dementia. You'll see that these factors are often kind of linked. As it's usually when we talk about the human body, everything is linked and often you can't just investigate anything on its own.

As said, there are several factors which influence the chanche of receiving dementia:

• Loss of hearing (7%)
• Too high cholesterol (7%)
• Low education (5%)
• Social isolation (5%)
• Depression (3%)
• Traumatic brain damage (3%)
• Air polution (3%)
• Loss of sight (2%)
• Lack of movement (2%)
• Diabetes (2%)
• Smoking (2%)
• High blood pressure (2%)
• Obese (1%)
• Drinking too much alcohol (1%)

That's a total of 45% of aspects on which people could have an influence. More or less atleast, poluted air and your education level isn't always that easy to change but in general a person could have an influence on. You might wonder why having a loss of hearing might be (so high) on this list? Well, as people lose the ability to listen to others, the chanches they will become isolated will climb significantly. Social isolation is an important factor as when we're interacting with people, our brain is activated and needs to work which apparently helps against developing dementia.

Another aspect is being active enough. Several elements could be prevented by just being quite active. As people the last decades are tending more towards a sitting lifestyle, it should be mzntioned that sports are very important for us, humans. It could be anything, from walking to biking to ropeskipping or dancing, but just don't forget to move!

As with nearly all diseases, ofcourse not intoxicating ourselves is important here as well. Inhalating polluted air isn't always that easy when you live in a crowded city for example but not smoking or not drinking too much alcohol are definitely choices we make ourselves. So be aware that when you do so, you're harming your own body.

Conclusion

A lot of further research has to be done in regards to dementia but there are already several factors identified on which we can have an influence ourselves. Like moving enough, eating healthy and try to not get isolated!

Thanks for reading!