Figure 1.
Risk factors for dementia. Several established risk factors contribute to dementia risk: these can be divided into those which are unmodifiable, which are age, sex, and genetic risk, and potentially modifiable risk factors, which include low level of education, physical inactivity, high alcohol intake, smoking, hypertension, and diabetes. These interact throughout the life course to increase dementia risk by amyloid and tau-mediated neuropathology, cerebrovascular and inflammatory mechanisms, and reduced cognitive reserve. The linked article by Rasmussen et al.8 has generated a colour-coded risk calculator where green indicates low risk and red shows high risk of developing dementia during the subsequent 10 years.