Dementia is a scary prospect for those getting on in their years.
FOR years people have been saying that there was a clear link between your cholesterol levels and your chances of developing later in life. Alternatively, some have even said that it's the type of cholesterol that matters, not just the how much you have in your blood.
If you have a lot of high density lipid (HDL) cholesterol, it will save you from going senile, whereas a lot of low density lipid (LDL) cholesterol buys a one way ticket to the funny farm once you hit 60.
So is it true? Will your high cholesterol levels mean you will develop dementia in your senior years?
Verdict:
FALSE
No study as of yet can definitively prove a causal link between your cholesterol levels and the likelihood of you developing dementia.
There is however, a lot of correlation between the two. In science, a correlation is when there is a notable relationship between two or more phenomena that may or may not be causal in nature.
An example could be: There's always a lot of black oil on the ground after a car crash, so there's a correlation between black oil on the ground and car crashes. However, it would be wrong to say that all car crashes are caused by black oil on the ground. The two phenomena are correlated, but not causal.
Same thing goes for your cholesterol levels and dementia.
In a study that was published on Oct 4 this year, researchers found that both high and low HDL cholesterol levels seemed to be tied to a slight risk of dementia.
In the study, researchers followed more than 184,000 adults for 17 years with the aim to understand the relationship between two types of cholesterol, "good" HDL and "bad" LDL, and the likelihood of developing dementia in old age.
The participants had all undergone the same health behaviour survey in the early 2000s as part of the same health plan they were signed up to.
They were 55 years or older at the beginning of the study and did not exhibit any signs of dementia.
Over the next 17 years, researchers found that people with the highest HDL cholesterol levels had a 15% higher dementia risk as compared to those with mid-range levels.
Conversely, those with lowest HDL levels had a 7% higher risk of dementia versus the mid-range group.
Meanwhile, LDL cholesterol levels (high, mid or low) seemed to have no impact whatsoever except for those using statins where a higher LDL cholesterol level indicated a slightly higher risk.
The researchers concluded that while there seemed to be a link, the study only showed that there was an association and did not prove that high or low HDL cholesterol levels directly caused dementia.
While it might sound somewhat inconclusive, at least now researchers know that there is a correlation between cholesterol levels and developing dementia and will be able to dedicate more effort to study how the two are related.
If you are worried that you are at risk of developing dementia, a simple way to decrease that likelihood is by exercising and keeping yourself mentally active.
A meta analysis conducted in 2010 saw that seniors who exercised were less likely to develop dementia as compared to their more sedentary counterparts.
Not only that, previously sedentary seniors who started exercising also found their risk of dementia lowered as well.
Another study published in 2003 found that people aged 75 years or more who engaged in mentally challenging leisure activities had a lower risk of dementia than other elderly people.
According to the study, people who reported often playing board games, reading, playing a musical instrument or doing crossword puzzles were less likely to develop dementia than people who said they engaged in those activities only rarely.
References:
1. n.neurology.org/content/early/2023/10/04/WNL.0000000000207876
