Severe infections may accelerate late-onset dementia, researchers find
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New research has found an association between late-onset dementia and certain infections.
The study, published in the journal PLOS Medicine, explored the link between the two and whether the link was due to other health problems resulting from serious infections.
Researchers at the University of Helsinki, Finland, evaluated 170 common hospital-treated diseases that occurred one to 21 years before diagnosis in more than 65,000 patients with dementia aged 65 and older.
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After narrowing the list down to 29 diseases that showed the strongest link to dementia, two were infections: cystitis (bacterial/urinary tract infection) and general bacterial infection.
Other diseases, including mental disorders, as well as digestive, endocrine, cardiovascular and neurological diseases, as well as injuries, were not contagious.
Almost half of dementia cases involved one of 29 diseases identified before diagnosis. (iStock)
Almost half (47%) of dementia cases occurred after one of 29 identified diseases.
The researchers found that the link between dementia and infection remained intact even after adjusting for these diseases. These infections typically occurred approximately five to 6-½ years before dementia diagnosis.
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For example, the rate of late-onset dementia was approximately 19% higher in those with cystitis and bacterial infections treated in the hospital.
Overall, the findings “support the possibility that serious infections increase the risk of dementia,” the researchers said.
The rate of late-onset dementia was approximately 19% higher in those with cystitis and bacterial infections treated in the hospital. (iStock)
Because dementia often takes “years or even decades” to develop, the findings suggest that serious infections “may accelerate underlying cognitive decline,” the study authors wrote in a press release.
Operating limitations
The lack of basic cognitive assessment and clinical examination data before dementia diagnosis brought some limitations to the study. Infection treatment data were also not available.
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Study co-author Pyry N. Sipila, PhD, a public health lecturer at the University of Helsinki, noted that the study was observational.
“So we can’t prove whether there really is a cause-and-effect relationship between serious infections and dementia,” he told Fox News Digital. “Ideally, there will be future intervention trials to test whether preventing infections can help reduce or delay the onset of dementia.”
The authors suggest that infections may accelerate already existing dementia. (iStock)
Sipila recommends that adults stay up-to-date on vaccinations.
“Although our study does not prove that vaccines will help prevent dementia, I think it certainly wouldn’t hurt to have the extra benefit of potentially reducing risk,” he said.
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Harvard-trained behavioral neurologist and chief medical officer of Isaac Health, Dr. Joel Salinas said the size of the study suggests it could be applied to other populations.
“We assume that infections are generally just an indicator that someone is at risk of disease in general, but here serious infections seem to play a particularly independent role,” the New York-based expert, who was not involved in the research, told Fox News Digital.
“This suggests that there may be something biologically meaningful, such as inflammation or immune responses, affecting the brain.”
Cardiovascular health, managing conditions such as hypertension and diabetes, and avoiding head injuries are among the risk factors for dementia, Salinas said. (iStock)
Having an infection does not guarantee the development of dementia but should be viewed as “one piece of a much larger puzzle,” Salinas said, adding that it’s important to keep this increased risk “in perspective.”
Some of the strongest risk factors for dementia include underlying factors such as heart disease, hypertension, diabetes, depression and head injuries, according to Salinas.
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“What this study adds is a reminder that serious infections, especially those that require hospitalization, can be part of the risk profile, especially in older adults,” he told Fox News Digital.
“We are moving away from thinking of dementia as a single disease with a single cause and toward understanding it as the result of multiple factors interacting over time.”
