My college classmate, Roy, sent me a link to this article in The Economist. It refers to an article in the prestigious journal, The Lancet, updating us on where medical science is at with respect to lifestyle and development of dementia. It's an update to an article we discussed before that endeavored to say how much each modifiable lifestyle factor affects the probability that we will develop dementia. Of course, the researchers who wrote the article emphasized all elements of the Dementia Toolkit and then added a couple more. And this update adds two more as well.
The new factors in this updage were high LDL cholesterol in mid-life and untreated vision loss in later life. The correlation with LDL is quite strong, although the correlation with vision loss is weaker.
In discussing the MIND diet, we noted previously that there's an association between consuming saturated fats (such as in cheese and red meat) with development of dementia. (This is in spite of the fact that the association of dietary cholesterol and cardio-vascular disease is much weaker than previously thought.) So maybe that's related to the newer finding on LDL. But the vision finding is quite interesting -- and I think it goes with the previously recognized association of hearing loss with dementia. We're told that the hearing loss factor is associated with social isolation.
So my take is that, when human beings connect with each other in relationship, the brain is strengthened. Therefore, factors impairing our ability to communicate and otherwise socialize with other people affects brain health negatively -- they contribute to the probability someone might develop dementia. So when you have trouble hearing other people, it makes it harder to form or exercise the human bonds that strengthen our brains. It looks to me like the same thing applies to vision loss. When you have trouble seeing others, it interferes with your ability to socialize with them. And that encourages the development of dementia.
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