The facial feature that could mean you’re 2.5 times more likely to develop dementia

While wrinkles are a normal aspect of aging, some might betray more than your age.

Scientists believe that crow’s feet may be an early indicator of dementia.

According to the experts, cognitive decline symptoms, which may be a sign of brain-eating disease, are more common in those who appear older than their true age.

“Facial aging, both subjective and objective, may be an indicator of cognitive decline and dementia risk in older adults,” scientists wrote in the journal Alzheimer’s Research and Therapy.

“We found that high perceived facial age was associated with high risk of cognitive impairment and dementia” .

The disease is the greatest cause of death in Britain, where almost a million people suffer from it.

Researchers from Fudan University in China examined data from 200,000 men and women in a two-part study.

Participants in the first phase, whose average age was 64, were asked if they appeared younger, older, or roughly their age to others.

Approximately 6,000 cases of dementia were reported over a 12-year span.

Dementia was 61% more likely to strike those who were perceived as seeming older.

Alzheimer’s disease, the most prevalent type of dementia, is also 23% more likely to occur.

and 74% more likely to suffer from dementia of an unidentified kind.

In the study’s second section, 612 men and women, aged 63 on average, were shot by researchers, who then examined the photos for characteristics associated with aging.

They found that people with more crow’s feet wrinkles were 2.5 times more likely to have cognitive impairment due to the correlation between the two conditions.

According to one notion put out by the experts, excessive sun exposure may be detrimental to one’s skin and cognitive abilities.

According to earlier research on animals, UV-induced skin aging may have an effect on the neuro-immune system, which helps shield brain cells.

NEW DRUGS

The research coincides with the UK’s approval of alecanemab, the first medication proven to reduce the course of early-stage Alzheimer’s.

According to trials that began in September 2021, it could delay cognitive deterioration in people with early-stage Alzheimer’s by about 25% over the course of 18 months.

The MHRA, the UK’s pharmaceuticals authority, has now granted it a license, allowing private prescriptions.

However, the NHS will not offer it because, according to the National Institute of Health and Care Excellence (NICE), “the benefits are too small to justify the cost.”

Although the drug’s price in the UK has not been made public, it costs about $20,000 annually in the US.

“The MHRA’s approval of the first safe and effective Alzheimer’s disease treatment, which has been shown to slow progression, is a defining moment for people with early-stage Alzheimer’s disease in the UK and a significant step towards a more hopeful future,” stated Fiona Carragher, chief policy and research officer at the Alzheimer’s Society.

“But it is disappointing that NICE has not recommended approving lecanemab for use on the NHS at this stage.”

In patients with early-stage Alzheimer’s disease, lecanemab is an intravenous antibody infusion treatment that eliminates amyloid beta protein from the brain.

The brain normally contains amyloid beta protein, but in Alzheimer’s disease patients, it accumulates to dangerous amounts and forms plaques that impair brain cell function and cause death.

Among the first to use the medicine was 77-year-old Joan Murtaugh. After receiving a diagnosis of mild cognitive impairment and a high risk of Alzheimer’s, she joined the medication.

Joan, from Ohio, reported that her memory has improved and she can still live on her own.

“I feel completely normal and I’m not having the issues that I was having,” she told The Sun.

My memory has significantly improved, and I am fully functional.

I got my life back, I’m quite active, I drive frequently, I cook and garden, and I read a lot of books.