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Lifestyle can help prevent dementia, or at least delay it from occurring
Photo: Secret Annex Productions / Getty Images
When the health insurance company DAK asked people in Germany in winter 2020, as every year, which diseases they were afraid of, Covid-19 was only seventh on the list.
The respondents were most afraid of cancer, followed by dementia and an accident with serious injuries.
The fear of cancer and dementia increased with age.
It is understandable that these diseases cause great concern, because they do not occur infrequently with increasing age.
According to estimates, 1.6 million people lived with dementia in Germany in 2018, and the number is rising.
It is true that genes have a major influence on whether someone suffers from dementia.
But lifestyle can help prevent the disease or at least delay its occurrence.
According to a current study in the trade journal “The BMJ”, the choice of job could also contribute to this.
Data from more than 100,000 people
Mika Kivimäki's team from University College London wanted to know whether mentally demanding work reduces the risk of dementia.
The researchers drew on data from several large European and US studies.
This enabled them to evaluate data from more than 100,000 people who were followed for an average of around 17 years.
What was defined as mentally demanding work - or non-demanding work - in the study?
All participants answered several questions about the demands of their job and how much control or personal responsibility they have, including whether they have to work very quickly or very intensively and whether they can be creative or learn new things in their job.
If demands and personal responsibility were above average, the job was classified as very mentally demanding; if both were below average, they were classified as not very mentally demanding. If one was above and the other below average, the job was classified in the middle.
In fact, people with demanding jobs developed dementia somewhat less often during the study period. Accordingly, there were 4.8 cases of dementia per 10,000 person-years in the group with the highly demanding jobs. In the group with the less demanding jobs, there were 7.3 cases. The research group writes that even after taking known risk factors such as age, level of education and cardiovascular diseases into account, the result remained that demanding jobs were associated with a lower risk of dementia in old age. The relatively low number of cases of dementia is due to the fact that a large number of participants were not very old at the end of the study.
In a smaller study group, the team examined the levels of certain proteins in the blood, depending on the demands of the job - and in another, the connection between these proteins and the occurrence of dementia.
Those who were mentally challenged at work had, on average, lower amounts of certain proteins in their blood, which could possibly disrupt the growth of nerve cells and thus increase the risk of dementia.
Since this is an observational study, it cannot make a clear statement as to whether the peculiarities of the respective job were actually the cause of the lower risk of dementia.
The researchers write this themselves, for example the intelligence quotient in childhood could influence both the later career choice and the risk of dementia.
Nine recommendations that already apply
Regardless of the profession, certain behaviors and circumstances can help reduce the risk of dementia: A good year ago, a research team in the journal "The Lancet" made nine recommendations that were aimed at both politics and people.
From the age of 40,
blood pressure
should
not exceed 130.
If you have poor hearing, you should
buy
a
hearing aid
.
The
head protection
, in order to reduce the risk of injury.
This is especially true for high-risk environments such as road traffic, but also for sports such as boxing or horse riding.
Alcohol only in moderation
.
Excessive drinking provokes changes in the brain, which in turn increase the risk of dementia.
People should be
physically active
from mid-life at the latest
, if possible into old age.
If you
reduce
excess weight
, the risk of
diabetes
also decreases
.
People shouldn't start
smoking in the first place
or, if it's too late, stop smoking.
Also important: people should
(have to)
less
passive smoking
.
Also
air pollution
increases the risk of dementia.
All children should have an
education
.
Education doesn't seem to be able to stop the disease, but it does help the brain deal with it.
Perhaps in the future there will also be a hint that people are not only challenged mentally at work, but should also be given as much personal responsibility as possible.
wbr / irb