Dementia is burdening an ever-expanding population, and newly conducted research is drawing sharp focus to a previously undervalued connection–the common urinary tract infection (UTI). An infection, prevalent especially in women, that raises the specter of dementia dramatically. Cystitis, a typical UTI, shows an elevated risk of resulting in dementia, disregarding other illnesses. As many as three out of five women may encounter cystitis at least once in their lifespan, and approximately 10% of women are likely to experience an annual bout of the infection.
This finding is the outcome of extensive research that involved an analysis of the health registry data from Finland. The data covered over 62,000 dementia-diagnosed people, mostly aged 65 or older between 2017 and 2020. Another group served as a benchmark consisting of over 312,000 people with no dementia.
Working as a cohesive international research team, a robust association was observed between dementia risk and 29 identified specific diseases from a review of the hospital-treated diseases recorded in the previous 20 years. Almost half of the dementia cases had at least one of the 29 identified diseases preceding their diagnosis. Interestingly, among these diseases, two were infections: cystitis and an anonymous bacterial infection. Upon adjustment for the 27 non-infectious diseases related to dementia, the link between infection and dementia remained decidedly firm.
Furthermore, the relation between infections and dementia appeared to be more pronounced in early-onset dementia—diagnosed before the age of 65. Five types of infections, inclusive of pneumonia and dental caries, were linked with an increased risk. The study posits that severe infections may boost the risk of dementia and potentially hasten cognitive decline. Still, due to the observational nature of the study, a concrete cause-and-effect correlation could not be established, and the role of unmeasured confounding factors remains to be elucidated.
Despite this, the findings raise the proposition that effective prevention or treatment of infections might be beneficial in staving off dementia. Intervention trials investigating the potential advantages of enhanced infection prevention on the occurrence and onset of dementia are much anticipated.
This pioneering study advocating for infection prevention as a plausible preventative measure for dementia, further extends our understanding of this debilitating condition, shedding light on new directions for diagnosis, treatment, and, importantly, prevention.