Research indicates that having one or more of 70 prevalent health conditions might elevate your risk of developing dementia.

Alzheimer’s disease, the most prevalent type of dementia, currently affects seven million individuals in the United States, with its numbers steadily increasing.

Traditionally viewed as a condition associated with aging, typically manifesting after the age of 65, recent studies suggest that lifestyle habits and certain health conditions emerging earlier in life can initiate the disease. These factors may ignite harmful inflammation and inflict damage on brain cells.

Scientists from Vanderbilt University and the University of Chicago have focused on four specific categories of pre-existing health issues. By analyzing electronic health records, they monitored 150 million people over a decade, during which more than 40,000 individuals were diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.

Their findings revealed that those who were diagnosed with Alzheimer’s were more likely to have one or more of 70 distinct health conditions.

The study categorized these conditions into four main groups: mental health disorders, including depression; neurological issues, such as sleep disorders; circulatory problems, like high blood pressure; and endocrine or metabolic disorders, including diabetes.

Mental health conditions are thought to cause inflammation and shrink the hippocampus, the brain’s memory center, while sleep disorders have been shown to disrupt the brain’s waste clearance system.

Scientists believe circulatory disorders reduce blood flow to the brain and cause harmful oxygen shortages, while metabolic conditions lead to inflammation and insulin resistance, reducing the brain’s ability to clear out toxic plaques linked to Alzheimer’s disease. 

Researchers have found more than 70 conditions that may raise the risk of Alzheimer’s disease (stock image)

The researchers behind the new study believe detecting these conditions earlier in life could help prevent or slow Alzheimer’s disease in old age. 

Xue Zhong, corresponding study author and professor in the Division of Genetic Medicine and Clinical Pharmacology at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, said: ‘If we know the full inventory of medical conditions that predict Alzheimer’s disease development 10 or more years later, we can potentially intervene before clinical symptoms of memory and/or cognitive impairment become apparent.

‘It is projected that delaying the onset of Alzheimer’s disease by just five years could cut the incidence rate in half.’

About one in five US adults, or 60 million, have some form of mental health disorder, while 180 million have a neurological disorder. About 127 million have some form of circulatory conditions and 93 million have a metabolic syndrome. 

The study, published in the journal Alzheimer’s Research & Therapy, looked at electronic health records from two independent databases. The ream used MarketScan, a US claim-based database with over 150 million people, and Vanderbilt Health’s electronic health record system, which has three million patients.

Of the roughly 150 million patients, the researchers found 43,508 with an Alzheimer’s disease diagnosis, and 419,455 age- and sex-matched healthy controls in the MarketScan database. In Vanderbilt’s system, they found 1,320 Alzheimer’s cases and 12,720 healthy controls. 

About 90 percent of Alzheimer’s cases identified occurred after age 65. About 56 percent were women who had at least 10 years of health records prior to their diagnosis. 

Rebecca Luna’s (pictured here) early-onset Alzheimer’s symptoms appeared in her late 40s. She would black out mid-conversation, lose her keys and leave the stove before returning to find her kitchen full of smoke

Jana Nelson was 50 when diagnosed with early onset dementia, following severe personality changes and a sharp cognitive decline that left her unable to solve simple math problems or name colors. There is no suggestion that she developed this complication because of cannabis

The MarketScan dataset showed 406 conditions that occurred more often in people who developed Alzheimer’s later in life, while the Vanderbilt data showed 102. 

Across both sets of data, there were 73 conditions seen more often in Alzheimer’s patients. Mental health conditions included depression, anxiety, psychosis, hallucinations, suicidal ideation and speech and cognitive issues, among others.

The neurological category included sleep disorders such as insomnia and sleep apnea, movement issues like tremors and other neurological degeneration. Conditions in the cardiovascular group included high blood pressure and high cholesterol, and the metabolic group included type 2 diabetes, among others.

The researchers also identified vitamin deficiencies, thyroid disorders, urinary incontinence and musculoskeletal conditions such as arthritis and carpal tunnel syndrome. 

Researchers noted that associations based on electronic health records (EHRs) do not show definitive proof that these conditions cause Alzheimer’s disease, but they may help detect dementia earlier.

‘Longitudinal EHRs offer a powerful view into the decades-long development of Alzheimer’s disease,’ Zhong said. ‘By identifying medical patterns that consistently precede Alzheimer’s disease, we can unlock new opportunities for risk reduction, early intervention and improved patient outcomes.’