Past studies show there are certain healthy lifestyle choices that people can make to potentially help them lower their risk for dementia.
In 2024, the Lancet Commission established 14 risk factors for dementia, with many of them being modifiable such as smoking, obesity, alcohol misuse, physical inactivity, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol.
The Lancet Commission further reported in 2024 that about half of all dementia cases around the world could be prevented or delayed by addressing these risk factors.
“Dementia affects more than 57 million people worldwide, and that number is set to almost triple by 2050,” Mario Siervo, PhD, professor of human nutrition and head of the School of Population Health at Curtin University in Australia, told Medical News Today.
“Around half of all cases are linked to modifiable risk factors, so there is real scope to reduce risk, yet many people still believe nothing can be done. Finding effective ways to change that belief is one of the biggest opportunities in dementia research,” added Siervo.
He is the senior author of a new study published in the journal The Lancet Healthy Longevity that says although almost 50% of all dementia cases could be prevented by changing modifiable risk factors, current public health approaches may not be helping enough to drive people to making real behavior changes.
For this study, researchers analyzed data from public health campaigns and programs across eight countries, including the United States, Australia, Belgium, China, and Denmark, focused on messaging regarding dementia risk reduction and prevention.
Some of these programs included mass media campaigns, as well as educational and interactive interventions that included personalized risk profiling, online courses, and community-based approaches.
“Most prevention research has focused on the individual, which is valuable but costly and hard to scale,” Siervo said.
“Population-level campaigns can reach whole communities at once. Despite strong interest in this approach, no one had yet brought the evidence together to ask whether these campaigns actually work — that is the gap we set out to fill,” he noted.
At the study’s conclusion, researchers found that while large-scale dementia prevention awareness campaigns are able to reach a wide audience, they often lead to only small improvements in knowledge and limited changes in behavior.
“These campaigns are overall working as they consistently show a positive influence on awareness and, for some people, on behavior,” Siervo explained. “The effect for any one person may be modest, but campaigns reach enormous numbers, and a small shift across a whole population can add up to a meaningful public health impact. Even small changes are valuable.”
Additionally, scientists discovered that more interactive approaches had a more consistent effect in motivating people to make lifestyle changes than passive information campaigns.
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Overall, researchers said the most promising intervention was a combination risk assessment and structured education, resulting in a 26% improvement in modifiable risk factor status over three years.
“People change when they are actively engaged, not simply informed,” Siervo said. “The most effective interventions combined a personalised risk assessment with structured education. Clinicians and health professionals should inform people that prevention is possible and show them what they can do about it.”
MNThad the opportunity to speak with Dung Trinh, MD, an internist for MemorialCare Medical Group and chief medical officer of the Healthy Brain Clinic in Irvine, CA, about this study, who commented that it confirms what he sees every day in clinical practice.
Many patients still believe dementia is purely genetic, inevitable, or simply a consequence of aging, when in fact a meaningful portion of dementia risk is connected to factors we can identify and address earlier, Trinh, who was not involved in this research, told us.
“The encouraging message is that prevention is possible; the concerning message is that our current public education efforts are not consistently translating awareness into sustained behavior change. The review’s finding that broad campaigns often produce only modest knowledge gains, while more personalized and interactive interventions perform better, feels very clinically relevant,” he explained.
MNTalso spoke with Jonathan Rosand, MD, MSc, J P Kistler Endowed Chair in Neurology at Mass General Brigham, professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School, and founder of the Global Brain Care Coalition, who likewise was not involved in this study.
Rosand told us:
“In our own survey work, we have found that most Americans already know the basic modifiable risk factors for dementia — knowledge levels ran as high as 95% for something like diet — but far fewer people actually act on that knowledge, with healthy practice rates as low as 33% for something like sleep. This review confirms what I see in [the] clinic: Telling someone what’s risky isn’t the same as partnering with them to change.”
Manisha S. Parulekar, MD, FACP, AGSF, chief of the Division of Geriatrics and co-director of the Center for Memory Loss and Brain Health at Hackensack University Medical Center, and an associate professor in the Department of Medicine at the Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine in New Jersey, who likewise was not involved in this study, shared what types of changes would she like to see implemented in how health care professionals and organizations explain the modifiable risk factors of dementia.
“Healthcare professionals and organizations should move towards more personalized and interactive approaches,” Parulekar told MNT. “This includes implementing online education programs, offering individualized risk assessments, and developing community-based programs.”
“Access to various lifestyle interventions is equally if not more crucial,” she continued. “Embedding these services as a stand healthcare services can also be very helpful. These methods are more engaging and provide the practical support needed to help individuals make sustained lifestyle changes.”
Parulekar added that future research should focus on the long-term effectiveness and scalability of these more personalized and community-driven interventions.
“It is important to investigate how to best implement these programs in a way that is both cost-effective and culturally relevant for diverse populations,” she continued. “Additionally, continued research into other modifiable risk factors, such as the connection between muscle strength, body composition, and dementia risk, will be vital.”
