Scientists from the University of Oxford and the University of Exeter found that certain heart diseases and diabetes were able to increase the risk of dementia by three times. The findings of the work are described in the medical journal The Lancet Healthy Longevity.

During the study, experts studied the data of more than 200 thousand Europeans aged 60 years and older. Participants were divided into three groups of genetic risk of developing dementia from low to high. Patients with diabetes, stroke and heart attack or a combination of these diseases were also isolated. It turned out that the more one of these three diseases in a person’s history, the higher the risk of developing dementia. Subjects who survived both a heart attack and a stroke, as well as had diabetes, were more likely to develop dementia than people with a high genetic risk.

Previously, scientists from Yale University developed an experimental drug that restored brain synapses in experimental rodents with neurodegenerative diseases similar to Alzheimer’s in humans.