People with digestive system diseases should pay special attention to try to prevent dementia, a new study warns. That’s because certain gastrointestinal problems are linked to dementia — and some come with heavier risks for dementia compared to others.
Clinicians know that digestive system diseases affect the gut microbiota and influence gut metabolites that are linked with dementia risk. But not much is known about the link between the diseases and dementia, or if certain GI problems have more pronounced links with developing dementia. Researchers published a study about the connection between the two Tuesday in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. Digestive diseases include gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), diverticulitis, irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and colitis.
The team evaluated data from 458,181 participants who didn’t have dementia. The data came from the UK Biobank between the years of 2006 and 2021. The researchers gauged the link between 14 different digestive system diseases and evaluated the incidence of dementia with regard to each digestive disorder. The analyses differentiated links in people with early dementia (younger than 65 years) and late onset (at age 65 or older). The researchers followed up on data on each person for a median time span of 12.4 years. During that time, 6,415 people were diagnosed with dementia.
Of the 14 digestive system diseases studied, 11 had significant links with an increased risk for developing dementia, even after researchers adjusted the data.
The risk for dementia rose by 26% for people with intestinal diverticular disease (diverticulitis) and by 121% in people with cirrhosis. People with digestive system diseases were more likely to have dementia if they had diverticulitis, cirrhosis, IBS, gastritis, duodenitis, GERD, ulcerative colitis, gallbladder disease, and peptic ulcer with early-onset dementia, the authors reported.
