A Finnish study of 62,555 individuals aged 65 or older in Finland in 2016 who were diagnosed with late-onset dementia between 2017 and 2020, and 312,772 dementia-free controls matched for year of birth, sex, and the follow-up period, reported:
- People who experience severe infections are at higher risk of developing dementia.
- It is unclear whether this association is explained by other coexisting (noninfectious) diseases that predispose to both infections and dementia.
- A better understanding of dementia risk factors is needed to inform more effective strategies for dementia prevention.
- Using nationwide Finnish registers, we identified 62,555 individuals aged 65 or older who were diagnosed with late-onset dementia between 2017 and 2020, and 312,772 dementia-free controls matched for year of birth, sex, and the follow-up period.
- We found that in a period of 1–21 years before follow-up, 29 hospital-treated diseases were associated with an increased risk of developing dementia, many of which were also interrelated.
- Two of the 29 diseases were infections, and both remained independently associated with dementia risk after adjustment for all other dementia-related diseases.
The study’s authors concluded:
- Many interconnected diseases are associated with an increased risk of dementia.
- Severe infections, although linked to several other dementia-related diseases, are independently associated with higher dementia risk.
- Because this study is observational, intervention trials are required to establish whether better infection prevention could reduce dementia incidence.
One of the study’s authors stated: “Our findings support the idea that severe infections might contribute to dementia risk independently from other dementia-related diseases. The dementia-related infections occurred on average 5 to 6 years before dementia. We know that the development of dementia often takes several years or even decades. Taken together, the findings suggest that severe infections could, in some cases, accelerate underlying cognitive decline.”
“It is important to remember that because our findings were based on observational data, we cannot prove whether there really is cause and effect between infections and dementia risk. Future studies are needed to assess whether better prevention of infections would help reduce or delay the onset of dementia.”
Mental disorders due to brain damage or physical disease, Parkinson’s disease, and alcohol-related mental and behavioral disorders had the strongest associations with dementia. Among people with early-onset dementia, five infection types, including pneumonia and dental caries, were tied to elevated risk.
Study limitations: Baseline cognitive assessments and other data that led to dementia diagnoses were not available in registry data. There also was no information about specific infection treatments.
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