Alzheimer’s disease: a healthy lifestyle to prevent dementia

Eating a balanced diet, maintaining cognitive activities, paying attention to your cardio-metabolic and mental health… so many individual risk factors on which we can act to limit our risk of Alzheimer’s disease or cognitive decline. And this even in cases of high genetic risk for this type of dementia. These are the encouraging results of a large Inserm cohort study.

Lack of curative treatment, focus on prevention

As there is currently no cure for Alzheimer’s disease, research is therefore focused on prevention. One of the most studied avenues consists of examining the combination of modifiable risk factors linked to lifestyle. Studies have been carried out in the United States, the Netherlands and England to determine whether a better profile of these factors can be protective and delay the development of the disease, and whether this relationship is influenced by the genetic risk of individuals. . However, the results of these studies have been contradictory to date. This new Inserm* study, the first in France, aimed to explore this question further. Researchers followed 5,170 participants over the age of 65 in the 3Cities study for up to 17 years. At the start of follow-up, none of the participants had a diagnosis of dementia.

To study modifiable risk factors for dementia, scientists used a risk score called the LIfestyle for BRAin health score (LIBRA), which assesses 12 components, including lifestyle factors (poor diet, physical inactivity, low engagement in cognitively stimulating activities, alcohol consumption, and smoking), cardio-metabolic health (history of heart disease, diabetes, high cholesterol, obesity, and hypertension), kidney dysfunction, and depression.

The scientists also looked at the presence of the APOE-ε4 gene, the main genetic risk factor, as well as a genetic risk score grouping together other susceptibility factors for Alzheimer’s disease.

A poor LIBRA score associated with a higher risk of Alzheimer’s

Their results show that the higher a person has a LIBRA score, which reflects a greater number of factors unfavorable to health, the greater their risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease, regardless of their genetic predisposition for this disease. dementia.

“Encouraging these people to modify some of their behaviors and act on modifiable risk factors is likely to provide significant benefits in reducing cognitive aging and delaying the symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease,” emphasizes Cécilia Samieri.

These results suggest that prevention programs targeting modifiable lifestyle factors could benefit everyone.

To establish more solid causal links and a higher level of scientific proof, an intervention study will be essential. It should aim to modify several of the factors of LIBRA in the elderly to determine if this really impacts the development of the disease or its early signs.

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