People with two or more chronic conditions (multimorbidity) in midlife had a higher risk of subsequent dementia, a prospective cohort showed.
Midlife multimorbidity more than doubled the risk of dementia later in life, reported Céline Ben Hassen, PhD, of Université de Paris, and colleagues, in The BMJ. Every 5-year younger age at multimorbidity onset upped dementia risk by 18%.
“The specific contribution of this study is to show that early onset of multimorbidity is particularly harmful,” co-author Archana Singh-Manoux, PhD, also of Université de Paris, told MedPage Today.
“Multimorbidity — the occurrence of two or more chronic diseases — is increasingly common and not confined to older ages,” she noted.
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“Brain health is likely to be a lifelong process, and the lack of curative solutions for dementia highlights the importance of prevention, starting early in midlife,” Singh-Manoux noted.
“For those with a first chronic condition, it is important to manage the condition so that a second chronic condition is avoided,” she said. “Data from high-income countries show the increasing prevalence of multimorbidity in midlife, and this is likely to have implications for the cognitive status of individuals at older ages.”
