Category: Other

The indirect relationship between sleep and cognition in the PREVENT cohort: identifying targets for intervention

Benjamin Tari, Michael Ben Yehuda, Axel Anders Stefan Laurell, Karen Ritchie, Yves Dauvilliers, Craig W. Ritchie, Brian Lawlor, Lorina Naci, Graciela Muniz Terrera, Paresh Malhotra, Tam Watermeyer, Robert Dudas, Benjamin R Underwood, John T O’Brien, Vanessa Raymont, Ivan Koychev.

Frontiers in Sleep (2023)

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.numecd.2023.07.020

Summary

As the global population ages, it is critical to understand factors associated with cognitive decline, such as sleep.  Sleep has been shown to maintain cognitive function and protect against the onset of chronic disease, but too much or too little has been linked to cognitive impairment, depression and dementia onset.  Here, we aimed to identify links between sleep, depression and cognition.  Our analyses found that sleep was related to participants’ ratings of symptoms of depression, and that their feelings of depression were associated with cognitive performance.  Our results provide a base from which cognition, dementia onset, and potential points of intervention, may be better understood.

The Mediterranean diet is associated with better cardiovasular health for women in mid-life but not men: A PREVENT dementia cohort cross-sectional analysis

Sarah Gregory, Georgios Ntailianis, Oliver Shannon, Emma Stevenson, Craig Ritchie, Katie Wells, Graciela Muniz-Terrera

Nutrition, Metabolism and Cardiovascular diseases (2023)

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.numecd.2023.07.020

Summary

A Mediterranean diet is rich in fruit, vegetables, pulses, olive oil and oily fish. People who eat this diet have been shown to have better cardiovascular health such as lower blood pressure and lower body mass index (BMI). The aim of this study was to (1) understand if the Mediterranean diet was associated with better cardiovascular health in the PREVENT dementia cohort and (2) to see if this differed between men and women. Three different scores were created which represent how close an individual’s diet represented a Mediterranean diet. Associations between these diet scores and measures of cardiovascular health, which included: blood pressure, BMI, waist-to-hip ratio, cholesterol, triglycerides and fasting glucose were then tested. The study found that higher Mediterranean diet scores were associated with lower blood pressure, lower BMI and lower cardiovascular risk scores and found these results were particularly consistent for women. This suggests the importance of considering sex and gender in the development of nutritional recommendations to improve cardiovascular health.

Trauma and depressive symptomatology in middle-aged persons at high risk of dementia: the PREVENT Dementia Study

Trauma and depressive symptomatology in middle-aged persons at high risk of dementia: the PREVENT Dementia Study 

Karen Ritchie,  Isabelle Carrière, Sarah Gregory, Tam Watermeyer, Samuel Danso, Li Su, Craig W Ritchie, John T O’Brien

Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry. 2020

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/jnnp-2020-323823

Summary 

This study explored the links between childhood trauma, depression, adult cognitive functioning and risk of dementia.

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Associations between midlife chronic conditions and medication use with anxiety and depression: A cross-sectional analysis of the PREVENT Dementia study

Lucy E Stirland , Sarah Gregory, Tom C Russ, Craig W Ritchie, Graciela Muniz-Terrera
Journal of Comorbidity. 2020
10.1177/1471301218789307

Summary

There is evidence to suggest that brain health is associated with multimorbidity, polypharmacy, depression and anxiety. This study aimed to investigate the interactions between these four-potential dementia-risk factors (depression, anxiety, multimorbidity and polypharmacy) at mid-life.

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Research participants as collaborators: Background, experience and policies from the PREVENT Dementia and EPAD programmes

Sarah Gregory, Katie Wells, Kate Forysth, Cate Latto, Helen Szyra, Stina Saunders, Craig W Ritchie, Richard Milne
Dementia Journal. 2018
10.1177/1471301218789307

Perspectives on Communicating Biomarker-Based Assessments of Alzheimer’s Disease to Cognitively Healthy Individuals.

Milne R, Bunnik E, Diaz A, Richard E, Badger S, Gove D, Georges J, Fauria K, Molinuevo JL, Wells K, Ritchie C.
Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease. 2018
10.3233/JAD-170813

PREVENT participants took part in organised group discussions around the benefits, harms and rights of an individual finding out information from biological measurements that may inform their personal risk of Alzheimer’s disease.

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