The same risk factors that lead to heart attack and stroke - obesity, diabetes, smoking, high cholesterol, and elevated blood pressure - are now being linked to a greater chance of dementia, cognitive decline, and Alzheimer's disease.

The study appearing in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) looked at middle aged people and found that those with two or more vascular risk factors would 20 years later have higher levels of amyloid protein fragments that are linked to Alzheimer's.  It doesn't establish causation, but it strongly suggests that people who focus on heart health through proper diet and exercise earlier in life may also be safeguarding their brains in their golden years.

"In our study, we found an association between the number of risk factors that people without dementia had when they were middle-aged and the risk of having amyloid in their brain when they were older," said lead study author Dr. Rebecca Gottesman of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland.  "Each alone may not be enough to increase the risk of Alzheimer's disease, but having a number of these risk factors appears to be associated with an even higher risk."

Alzheimer's