Reacción a "Vision loss and high cholesterol are risk factors for dementia"

This study by Livingston and colleagues is an excellent up-to-date analysis of the research from around the world examining risk factors for developing dementia.  The data in the paper add compelling evidence for the ability to prevent dementia by addressing some of the 14 identified risk factors.  This type of research cannot conclusively link any of these factors directly to dementia, but contribute to the growing evidence that a healthy lifestyle including keeping your brain engaged through education, social activities,  exercise, and cognitively stimulating activities, and avoiding things like head injury and factors that are bad for your heart and lungs can boost brain resilience and prevent dementia.  There are new links in this report with vision loss and high cholesterol associating with dementia risk, which broadly fit with the previous research indicating that keeping your brain active and avoiding vascular risk factors that come with a sedentary lifestyle and poor diet is good for reducing dementia risk. 

This study is important as it gives insight into ways that both individuals and governments can help reduce dementia risk. It also helps guide more fundamental neuroscience research into how these factors influence brain vulnerability to the diseases that cause dementia. While this excellent study estimates that up to half of dementia cases could be prevented by changing modifiable risk factors, it is important that we keep in mind that the other half of people with dementia likely developed brain disease for unavoidable reasons related to factors beyond their control like genetics.