Want to know how to reduce dementia risk? While you should definitely cut out smoking, exercise regularly and address high blood pressure, there’s one significant intervention you might need to make that can cut your risk in half.
Welcome to The One Thing! Every week we’re bringing you the one nugget of info that you need to know or didn’t know you needed to know! Whether it’s a tip to make your life a little easier, a pearl of wisdom, something to make you think, or maybe something to make you laugh, The One Thing is here to serve you every Friday!
If you’ve got a suggestion or submission for The One Thing – maybe something about the industry you work in that you think others should know! – please send your thoughts to alice@capsulenz.com. We’d love to hear from you!
Right now around 70,000 New Zealanders are battling dementia – an unbelievably cruel disease that slowly robs people of their identity. And unfortunately, cases are on the rise.
It’s predicted that by 2050 that number will jump to 170,000.
As rates continue to rise it’s thought that globally, that number will be 152 million suffering worldwide (generally the number has doubled every 20 years). Interestingly (and scarily) it’s women who are most affected – with around 30% more women than men being diagnosed.
So… what the heck can we do to reduce our chances of developing it?
While there’s many factors at play with dementia, there does appear to be one thing that can greatly increase your chances of getting it (and therefore, one thing you can work on to reduce your risk).
It’s hearing loss.
Yip, while you might have already heard that you smoking and having high blood pressure can lead to dementia, a big component also appears to be hearing loss.
Reports published by the Lancet Commission found that even mild hearing loss can increase double your dementia risk. It suggested that moderate hearing loss can increase the risk three-fold.
The Alzheimer’s Society says that people who develop hearing problems during mid-life (aged 40-65) have an increased risk of developing dementia. It may also be one of the early symptoms of dementia – although it’s important to remember that hearing loss is only a risk factor and does not mean that if you have hearing loss you will develop dementia!
It seems that addressing hearing loss and intervening as early as possible can greatly reduce your risk of developing dementia. The use of hearing aids has been show to reduce the level right down to the same as a person with regular hearing.
So, if you’re in that age range, or you’re worried at all about your hearing, making an appointment with your GP or an audiologist is a great start. Or if you happen to have AirPods Pro 2, there’s actually a really good free test you can do using those.
There’s still a lot we don’t know about the link between hearing loss and dementia, but part of it is believed to be that areas of the brain that understand speech and sound have to work a lot harder, at the neglect of other brain functions which affect our memory and thinking abilities. Hearing loss can also make people more likely to withdraw from social situations and become more isolated over time. Both social isolation and depression are risk factors for dementia.