New research in the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry suggests that frailty is more significant for lowering the risk of dementia than previously believed.
“We explored relationships between frailty index, healthy lifestyle and polygenic risk scores (all assessed at study entry) and incident all-cause dementia as recorded on hospital admission records and death register data,” the team at the University of Exeter wrote in their published findings.
The study considered the data of over 190,000 adults aged 60 and older from the UK Biobank. Researchers calculated each participants’ genetic risk while also using a previously-developed score for frailty.
According to researchers, the association between frailty and dementia is strong, affecting the risk related to genetic factors.
“Frailty should be considered an important modifiable risk factor for dementia and a target for dementia prevention strategies, even among people at high genetic risk,” the authors of the study determined.
