The Lancet on dementia risk
The Lancet Commission on dementia prevention, intervention and care · Standing commission, most recently reported in 2024.
Every few years a standing commission of dementia researchers reviews the evidence and publishes the list of risk factors that are modifiable - the ones a person, or a health service, could in principle do something about. The 2024 report names fourteen, and estimates that acting on all of them across a population could prevent or delay a large share of cases. That is a population estimate rather than a promise to any individual, and the commission is careful to say so.
The fourteen, as the 2024 report names them
- 01Less education in early life
- 02Hearing loss
- 03High LDL cholesterol
- 04Depression
- 05Traumatic brain injury
- 06Physical inactivity
- 07Diabetes
- 08Smoking
- 09High blood pressure
- 10Obesity
- 11Excessive alcohol
- 12Social isolation
- 13Air pollution
- 14Untreated vision loss
What this changes here
Our reading, not theirs.
This list is the single clearest argument for the way we organize our topics. Four of the fourteen - hearing, vision, social isolation and depression - are the ones a service menu usually leaves out, and they are why Hearing, Vision & the Senses, Connection & Purpose, and Mood, Stress & Mental Health are topics here rather than footnotes. The rest sit inside cardiovascular and metabolic care, which is the same work seen from another angle.
The topics this bears on
Read the original
Where to go next
The other work we read