An Unwelcome Birthday for Baby-Boomers?
Tue, December 20, 2005 at 11:32AM On January 1, 2006, the first baby-boomer will turn 60. This sobering thought should encourage all the other baby boomers to look at their lifestyles, general health, and disease risk factors, and assess where they are likely to be in 20 years. Unfortunately, many of them will be in nursing homes, suffering from Alzheimer’s and other dementias.
The frequency of dementia is increasing, and there are a number of ‘risk factors’ closely linked with it. Elimination of an individual’s risk factors reduces the chances of their developing the condition. What are they? A new study reports that obesity (a BMI over 30) during middle age doubles the risk of contracting Alzheimer’s. So does a systolic blood pressure over 140 mmHg, or a total cholesterol level of 250 mg/dL or above.
What’s most alarming is that each of these risk factors is additive i.e. persons with all three risk factors have about 6 times the chance of developing dementia than someone with none of them!
In this study the baseline examination, when the participants’ risk factors were established, was done around the age of 50. So, baby boomers, you have a bit of catching up to do, if you want to improve your odds of avoiding Alzheimer’s or other forms of dementia.
Reader Comments (1)
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