Dementia Risk Could Rise as a Result of Poor Metabolic Health

Three or more of the following conditions—high waist circumference, high triglycerides, high blood pressure, high blood sugar, and low high-density lipoprotein (HDL), also referred to as “good” cholesterol—were considered indicators of poor metabolic health. ‘Metabolic syndrome’ is the term used to describe this group of ailments. Globally, 20–25% of adults have metabolic syndrome, which has been linked to a higher risk of heart disease, stroke, and type 2 diabetes in the past.

By analyzing data from more than 176,000 people in the UK Biobank study, the researchers looked into the relationship between metabolic syndrome and the chance of later getting dementia. Over a period of 15 years, each participant’s health was monitored using their medical data. To guarantee that the study included individuals at risk of getting dementia, all participants had to be 60 years of age or older and dementia-free at the beginning of the trial.

Key conclusions:

• At the time of the study’s data collection, 73,510 participants (42%) had metabolic syndrome;
• High blood pressure (96%) was the most prevalent complication of metabolic syndrome, followed by high triglycerides (74%), poor HDL cholesterol (72%), a large waist circumference (70%), and high blood glucose (50%) levels.
• Over a 15-year span, 5,255 of the 176,249 trial participants developed dementia.
• Comparing people with and without metabolic syndrome, participants with metabolic syndrome had a 12% higher chance of dementia development;
• A higher incidence of dementia was found to be associated with more metabolic syndrome diseases. For instance, the chance of dementia increased by 19% and 50%, respectively, depending on whether four or five diseases were present.

Danial Qureshi, lead author and PhD candidate at Oxford Population Health, said ‘Our study findings suggest that early identification and management of metabolic syndrome could potentially reduce risk of developing dementia later in life. Metabolic syndrome is an especially promising target for prevention since each of its individual components are modifiable through lifestyle changes or pharmacological treatments. Learning more about this link is crucial, especially given the rapid increase in dementia cases worldwide and the limited number of effective treatments currently available.’

Dr Thomas Littlejohns, senior author and Senior Epidemiologist at Oxford Population Health, said ‘There is growing evidence that better prevention, management and treatment of certain health conditions could reduce future risk of dementia. These findings suggest that it is also important to consider the role of multiple conditions, especially as we observed the greatest risk in those with all five components of metabolic syndrome.’

Data from the UK Biobank, which includes more than 500,000 women and men between the ages of 40 and 69 who participated in the study between 2006 and 2010, was used by the researchers. All participants gave their consent for medical record data to be used to monitor their health, enabling for the acquisition of dementia diagnosis up to 15 years later.

This extensive follow-up is crucial since dementia takes years to develop gradually before a practitioner can formally diagnose it. It’s likely that dementia’s effects on the body have a negative impact on metabolic health. The biggest correlations between poor metabolic health and the likelihood of dementia, the researchers discovered, were present in patients who were identified with the condition more than ten years later. This is encouraging proof that poor metabolic health may not only be a side effect of dementia but also a major contributing cause.

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