According to a new study,mental decline sets in by the age of 45, much earlier than previously thought.

Experts said that efforts to prevent dementia should start in middle age, as the most comprehensive study to date found that people’s cognitive powers are already waning by their mid-40s. Previously scientists had believed that there was no significant degeneration before the age of 60.

Poor cognitive status is perhaps the single most disabling condition in old age. As life expectancy continues to increase, understanding cognitive aging will be one of the challenges of this century.

Memory, reason and comprehension tests conducted on 7,000 British civil servants over a decade found decaying cognitive abilities even among the youngest in the sample, who were 45 at the start of the research. People in their late 40s saw their scores in mental reasoning tests decline by an average of 3.6 per cent by the time they were retested ten years later, according to research from the Whitehall II study— a follow-on to the Whitehall study, which also looked at civil servants — published in the British Medical Journal.

Anne Corbett, Research Manager of the Alzheimer’s Society said: “This large, important study adds vital information to the debate over when cognitive decline begins. However, the study does not tell us whether any of these people went on to develop dementia, nor how feasible it would be for GPs to detect these early changes.

“More research is now needed to help us fully understand how measurable changes in the brain can help us improve diagnosis of dementia.” ~ The Times

Source: The Times Whitehall II Study

The first changes in the brain of a person with Alzheimer’s disease can be observed as much as ten years in advance – ten years before the person in question has become so ill that he or she can be diagnosed with the disease. This is what a new study from Lund University in Sweden has found.

Physician Oskar Hansson and his research group are studying biomarkers – substances present in spinal fluid and linked to Alzheimer’s disease. The group has studied close to 140 people with mild memory impairment, showing that a certain combination of markers (low levels of the substance beta-amyloid and high levels of the substance tau) indicate a high risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease in the future.

As many as 91 per cent of the patients with mild memory impairment who had these risk markers went on to develop Alzheimer’s within a ten-year period. In contrast, those who had memory impairment but normal values for the markers did not run a higher risk of getting Alzheimer’s than healthy individuals. [continue reading…]

Study Participants at Risk for Alzheimer’s Want to Know Their Potential Fate

If you had a family history of developing Alzheimer’s disease, would you take a genetic test that would give you more information about your chances?

“Definitely,” said Gloria VanAlstine, 60, and Joyce Smith, 79. The two women took a controversial genetic test of a gene called Apolipoprotein E. APOE is a susceptibility gene where certain variants have been found to significantly increase a person’s risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease. Both women have a family history of Alzheimer’s, which increases risk.

The genetic test was conducted as part of the Risk Evaluation and Education for Alzheimer’s disease Study (REVEAL), a series of clinical trials taking place at U-M School of Public Health, with other sites including Harvard University, Howard University, and the University of Pennsylvania. [continue reading…]