Dementia threat not so severe, Nature Communications says

Research by Nature Communications has suggested that the predicted soaring of dementia cases may not be as severe as experts initially thought.

The study examined three areas in England, in 20 year periods, and found that actual new rates of dementia were lower than past trends have suggested. The research claims the new findings are due to improvements in men’s health.

The research was funded by the Medical Research Council and dementia charities, and involved interviewing around 7,500 people aged 65 and over living in Cambridgeshire, Nottingham and Newcastle in the early 1990s.

The questions involved asking about cognition and lifestyle and was repeated in the same format two decades later. The findings highlighted that while the new cases of dementia in women had remained fairly stable, new cases of the condition in men had fallen.

The researchers argued that if they extrapolated the study’s findings to apply to the rest of the UK, there would be 40,000 fewer cases of the disease than was estimated two decades ago.

While scientists are still unable to specify what lies behind the trend, it has been suggested men are taking better care of their health, with fewer men smoking, consuming high levels of salt and exercising more.

Professor Carol Brayne, at the University of Cambridge, and part of the research team, said: "I'm pretty optimistic that it's stabilising, but if we don't further improve health, then we would expect the numbers to go up with further ageing of the population, so it's a sort of cautious optimism."

However, charities have warned against complacency, outlining that over 200,000 dementia cases have been diagnosed each year.

Dr James Pickett, head of research at the charity Alzheimer's Society, welcomed the research but warned that more needed to be done to reduce the incidence of dementia.

He said: "People are living for longer, and with other risk factors such as diabetes and obesity on the rise, there will still be over 200,000 new cases of dementia each year. That's still an enormous number of people who require better information and health and social care support."