Could Your Address Determine Your Dementia Risk?
By Dennis Thompson HealthDay Reporter

MONDAY, June 30, 2025 — Your address might influence your risk for dementia, a new study says.
People living in poor neighborhoods appear to be more likely to have biological risk factors for inflammation and Alzheimer’s disease, researchers reported June 25 in the journal Neurology.
“These results suggest that neighborhood disadvantage increases the risk of inflammation, which may play an early role in the development of Alzheimer’s disease, as well as biomarkers for the disease itself,” senior researcher Angela Jefferson said in a news release. She’s director of the Memory and Alzheimer's Center at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tenn.
For the study, researchers tracked 334 people with an average age of 73 for up to nine years, taking blood tests, brain scans and thinking and memory evaluations at regular intervals. About 180 people from the group also had samples of spinal fluid drawn.
People who lived in areas with greater neighborhood disadvantage — lower employment, less income, less education, more disability — were more likely to have elevated levels of tau, results showed.
Tau is a protein related to Alzheimer’s disease, researchers noted. The brains of people with advanced Alzheimer’s frequently feature toxic tau tangles.
“This observation suggests that living in more disadvantaged neighborhoods may result in more stressful exposures that drive neurodegeneration, resulting in an increased risk for developing Alzheimer's disease,” Jefferson said.
Further, the spinal fluid of participants had elevated levels of a biomarker related to inflammation, researchers found.
Greater neighborhood disadvantage was related to faster increases in levels of high sensitivity C-reactive protein (CRP), a well-established marker for inflammation, results showed.
The more disadvantage a neighborhood had, the higher residents’ CRP levels increased year-by-year, researchers reported.
“Based on these results, healthcare providers may consider neighborhood disadvantage when they are working with people who could benefit from strategies to reduce inflammation levels through lifestyle interventions, such as stress reduction techniques and exercise,” Jefferson said.
These results could be driven by the toxic stress faced by people struggling to get by, researchers said. This stress could increase inflammation, which in turn causes tau proteins to turn toxic.
“Continued efforts should also be made to include people who live in disadvantaged neighborhoods in studies on prevention and treatment of Alzheimer’s disease,” Jefferson added.
However, researchers noted that this study cannot prove a direct cause-and-effect link between poverty and dementia, only an association.
Sources
Disclaimer: Statistical data in medical articles provide general trends and do not pertain to individuals. Individual factors can vary greatly. Always seek personalized medical advice for individual healthcare decisions.
Source: HealthDay
Posted : 2025-07-01 00:00
Read more

- High-Fiber Diet Reduces Risk of Hardened Arteries
- Online Videos For Kids Rife With Junk Food Messaging
- Menstrual Cycle Might Play A Role In Drinking
- Dupixent (dupilumab) Approved in the U.S. as the Only Targeted Medicine to Treat Patients with Bullous Pemphigoid (BP)
- Achieve Life Sciences Announces Submission of NDA to FDA for Cytisinicline as a Treatment of Nicotine Dependence for Smoking Cessation
- 'Pill-On-A-String' Could Revolutionize Testing For Throat Cancer
Disclaimer
Every effort has been made to ensure that the information provided by Drugslib.com is accurate, up-to-date, and complete, but no guarantee is made to that effect. Drug information contained herein may be time sensitive. Drugslib.com information has been compiled for use by healthcare practitioners and consumers in the United States and therefore Drugslib.com does not warrant that uses outside of the United States are appropriate, unless specifically indicated otherwise. Drugslib.com's drug information does not endorse drugs, diagnose patients or recommend therapy. Drugslib.com's drug information is an informational resource designed to assist licensed healthcare practitioners in caring for their patients and/or to serve consumers viewing this service as a supplement to, and not a substitute for, the expertise, skill, knowledge and judgment of healthcare practitioners.
The absence of a warning for a given drug or drug combination in no way should be construed to indicate that the drug or drug combination is safe, effective or appropriate for any given patient. Drugslib.com does not assume any responsibility for any aspect of healthcare administered with the aid of information Drugslib.com provides. The information contained herein is not intended to cover all possible uses, directions, precautions, warnings, drug interactions, allergic reactions, or adverse effects. If you have questions about the drugs you are taking, check with your doctor, nurse or pharmacist.
Popular Keywords
- metformin obat apa
- alahan panjang
- glimepiride obat apa
- takikardia adalah
- erau ernie
- pradiabetes
- besar88
- atrofi adalah
- kutu anjing
- trakeostomi
- mayzent pi
- enbrel auto injector not working
- enbrel interactions
- lenvima life expectancy
- leqvio pi
- what is lenvima
- lenvima pi
- empagliflozin-linagliptin
- encourage foundation for enbrel
- qulipta drug interactions