Midlife Vascular Risk Burden and Dementia-Free Survival Years

A large longitudinal study (N=12,409) from the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities cohort quantifies how midlife vascular risk factors — diabetes, hypertension, and smoking — reduce dementia-free survival years. Individuals with zero vascular risk factors at midlife lived an average of 30.1 dementia-free years from age 55, compared to just 17.5 years for those with all three risk factors. While higher vascular burden increased dementia risk, competing mortality meant that by age 95, those with no risk factors paradoxically showed higher cumulative dementia incidence (42%) than those with three risk factors (23%). Women had longer dementia-free survival than men across all risk levels, and Black participants showed shorter dementia-free survival with disparities widening at higher vascular burden. APOE-ε4 carriers experienced shorter dementia-free survival regardless of vascular risk group. The findings support total cardiovascular burden — not isolated risk factors — as a key determinant of cognitive aging trajectories.

Source: https://www.neurology.org/doi/10.1212/WN9.0000000000000152. 8 Sync News only summarizes and links out; content copyright belongs to the authors and original sources.