Cognitive decline risk factors

Alzheimer s disease is the most common form of age-related dementia and one of the most serious health problems in the industrialized world. AD is an insidious and progressive neurodegenerative disorder that accounts for the vast majority of dementia and is characterized by global cognitive decline and the accumulation of P-amyloid deposits and neurofibrillary tangles in the brain. Family history is the second greatest risk factor for... 

In short, chronic cannabis use does not appear, after cessation of drug use, to result in a significant cognitive decline or behavioral symptomatology. However, as discussed for cannabis use as a risk factor for schizophrenia (see section titled The Last 40 Years ), age of onset of cannabis use may be critical in determining the outcome of cannabis consumption later in life. Thus, in a recent study by Pope and colleagues (2003), heavy cannabis users who had started before the age of 17 differed from controls in neuropsychological tests, mainly on verbal IQ. 

Jorm AF. Is depression a risk factor for dementia or cognitive decline A review. Gerontology 2000 46 219-227. 

Ligthart, S.A., Moll van Charante, E.P., Van Gool, W.A., and Richard, E., 2010. Treatment of cardiovascular risk factors to prevent cognitive decline and dementia a systematic review. Vascular Health and Risk Management. 6 775-785. 

High Hey concentration is an independent risk factor for coronary artery disease, stroke, peripheral vascular atherosclerosis, and for arterial and venous thromboembolism, although the mechanisms for this effect remain poorly understood. The association between cognitive function and risk of death from stroke suggests that cerebrovascular disease is an important cause of declining cognitive function. 

Deficiencies of vitamin Bg, vitamin B12 and folate may play a role in the pathogenesis of cognitive impairment in the elderly. There are two biological mechanisms by which low levels of vitamin B12 or folate might result in dementia. First, vitamin B12 and folate are essential factors of methylation cycles involved in the synthesis of methionine from homocysteine. With decline in vitamin B status, homocysteine levels increase this is associated with increased prevalence of poor cognitive decline and increased risk of development of dementia and AD. The sequential inability to methylate homocysteine leads to SAH accumulation which is a strong inhibitor of all methylation reactions, competing with SAM for the active site on the methyl transferase... 

Daily intramuscular injection of the intracellular Fe chelator, desferrioxamine, was also shown to decrease the cognitive decline in a large cohort of AD patients [41]. Desferrioxamine (DFO) was at first thought to chelate aluminium, which was considered a risk factor for AD [112]. However desferrioxamine is commonly used as an iron chelator in the treatment of Sickle Cell disease [113], and for treatment of patients suffering from poisoning during acute iron overload [114-116]. Thus the mechanism of action of desferrioxamine in the treatment of AD is likely associated ivith iron chelation rather than aluminum chelation. Desferrioxamine appears to specifically suppresses APP mRNA translation (Figure 4) [102]. 

---