[Dementia and Metabolic-Vascular Risk Factors: Strategies for Prevention]

The prevalence of dementias is on the rise, increases exponentially with age and constitutes a major healthcare burden nationally and worldwide. Dementias are clinically heterogeneous and encompass numerous etiologies. Noteworthy, late onset dementias are closely related to vascular and metabolic risk factors in midlife. Cardiometabolic risk factors commonly precede the onset of cognitive decline for decades. This opens a huge window for prevention. Given the lack of established pharmacological options for treatment of most dementias, preventive strategies are of utmost importance. Several factors have been identified that have the potential to preserve a healthy metabolic phenotype and to attenuate the onset of late onset dementias. Evidence exists for low-risk lifestyle factors including a real food dietary pattern, an adequate supply with long chain omega-3 fatty acids, regular physical activity and restorative sleep, with multimodal concepts showing the greatest cumulative benefit.