Tuesday, July 28, 2015

[YOUR HEALTH] Drinking and smoking 'raises dementia risk'

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Drinking and smoking may raise the risk of dementia in later life because they shrink key parts of the brain.

Experts have warned that unhealthy lifestyle factors reduce the ‘grey matter’, the cells that crunch information.

Obesity, diabetes, smoking and drinking are each associated with.....
smaller volumes of grey matter in crucial parts of the brain linked to memory, the researchers found.

By scanning the brains of 1,600 people they were able to link participants’ lifestyles to the structure of their brain.

The team questioned the group - 800 over-50s and 800 under-50s - and identified their bad habits.

Seven years later they invited the volunteers back and scanned their brains using an MRI machine, before carrying out a series of IQ tests, in order to identify those who were showing early signs of Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia.

Study author Dr Kevin King, of the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, said: ‘We already know that vascular risk factors damage the brain and can result in cognitive impairment.

‘But our findings give us a more concrete idea about the relationship between specific vascular risk factors and brain health.’

The team examined the shape of three parts of the brain associated with memory and information recall - the hippocampus, precuneus and posterior cingulate cortex.

Their results, published today in the journal Radiology, found that risk factors of alcohol use and diabetes were associated with smaller total brain volume, while smoking and obesity were linked with reduced volumes of the posterior cingulate cortex.

People who drunk and smoked were more likely to have a smaller hippocampus whereas those who drank, were overweight and had high blood sugar were more likely to have a smaller precuneus.


Culled  - Dailymail

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