Smoking, high blood pressure, high blood lipids and cardiovascular disease tracked with damage to the brain's blood vessels and faster accumulation of white matter changes over four years, while relating less consistently to the amyloid and tau proteins associated with Alzheimer's disease.
The finding comes from a Lund University study of nearly 500 people with an average age of 65 and preserved cognitive ability, published in The Journal of Prevention of Alzheimer's Disease. Data came from the Swedish BioFINDER-2 cohort, collected between May 2017 and January 2025.
