It may be a teething problem

If a person’s dentures do not fit properly or they suffer from poor eyesight or hearing, they may be at a higher risk of developing brain disorders, researchers say.

Principal investigator, Dr Kenneth Rockwood of Dalhousie University in Canada, says the study suggests rather than only paying attention to already known risk factors of dementia such as diabetes or heart disease, keeping up with your general health may help to reduce the risk of the cognitive disease.

However, he says an individual health issue like ill-fitting dentures does not raise the risk of dementia in those who are predisposed to the brain-destroying condition.

“We know, for example, that dentures on their own are not associated with an adverse outcome; it’s just when they’re in combination with a whole bunch of other things that are wrong, and this state of having many things wrong is associated with adverse outcomes,” Dr Rockwood says.

The research, published in this week’s edition of the journal Neurology, found each health problem increased a person’s odds of developing dementia by 3.2% compared to people without such health issues.

The Canadian Study of Health and Ageing research included 7,239 people, who were aged 65 years and over, and were free of dementia.

Participants were assessed for Alzheimer’s disease and other types of dementia after five and then 10 years, and were questioned about 19 health problems not previously reported to predict dementia.

Some of these problems included arthritis, trouble hearing or seeing, denture fittings, chest or skin problems, stomach or bladder troubles, sinus issues, broken bones and feet or ankle conditions.

After 10 years, almost 3,000 participants had died and about 880 were cognitively healthy, while more than 600 had Alzheimer’s disease or another form of dementia.

Close to 700 had cognitive problems which were not classified as dementia, and the cognitive status of the roughly 1,000 other participants was unclear.

The results showed older people without health problems at the initial assessment had an 18% chance of developing dementia in 10 years, while the risk rose to 30% for those with eight health problems and 40% among those with 12.

“The point is that anything that’s bad for you is ultimately bad for your brain,” Dr Rockwood explains. “And in someone so predisposed, the cumulative effect of that is likely to increase the dementia risk.”

The brain and body share an intimate connection, according to Dr Rockwood, therefore any physical health problem can affect the cognitive organ.

“Our work joins a body of work that shows the brain is not an innocent bystander,” he says. “The brain fights back.”

That defensive healing mechanism called an “aberrant repair process” is believed to set in motion an immune inflammatory response that might possibly result in the tangled brain plaques and other neuron-destroying effects seen in Alzheimer’s.

According to Dr Rockwood, the ability of the brain to rewire its circuitry to overcome deficits — for instance, developing a new speech pathway after a stroke — is also part of this repair process.

More research needs to be conducted to confirm whether these non-traditional health problems may indeed be linked to an increased risk of dementia.