TORONTO (Dispatches) -- An extensive study has found that reducing frailty in older adults could be an effective strategy to prevent dementia, even among people who are at a high genetic risk for dementia and that it might be modified through a healthy lifestyle.
Scientists from Dalhousie University , Nova Scotia Health in Canada and the University of Exeter in the UK analyzed data from more than 196,000 adults aged over 60 in the UK Biobank. They calculated participants’ genetic risk and used a previously-developed score for frailty, which reflects the accumulation of age-related symptoms, signs, disabilities and diseases.
They discovered that even in those at the highest genetic risk of dementia, the risk was lowest in people who were fit, and highest in people who were in poor health, which was measured as a high degree of frailty. However, the combination of high genetic risk and high frailty was found to be particularly detrimental, with participants at six times greater risk of dementia than participants without either risk factor. In comparison, in study participants with a low degree of frailty, risk of dementia was more than 2.5 times higher (268 per cent) among study participants who had a high degree of frailty -- even after controlling for numerous genetic determinants of dementia.