Smoking
Smokers have a 45 percent higher risk of getting dementia than non-smokers, warns the World Health Organization.
It is estimated that 14 percent of all Alzheimer’s disease cases worldwide are potentially attributable to smoking.
“Since there is currently no cure for dementia, public health interventions need to focus on prevention by changing modifiable risk factors like smoking,” says Dr Shekhar Saxena, Director of the Department for Mental Health and Substance Abuse at WHO.
“Research shows that a decrease in smoking now is likely to result in a substantial decrease in the burden of dementia in the years to come.”