Healthy lifestyle and cognitive decline in middle-aged and older adults residing in 14 European countries

Studies examining lifestyle and cognitive decline often use healthy lifestyle indices, making it difficult to understand implications for interventions. A study published in the journal, Nature Communications, examined associations of 16 lifestyles with cognitive decline.
Data from 32,033 cognitively-healthy adults aged 50-104 years participating in prospective cohort studies of aging from 14 European countries were used to examine associations of lifestyle with memory and fluency decline over 10 years. The reference lifestyle comprised not smoking, no-to-moderate alcohol consumption, weekly moderate-plus-vigorous physical activity, and weekly social contact.
The key finding arising from this examination was that associations between lifestyle and cognitive decline primarily depended on whether participants reported smoking. For those who reported current smoking, cognitive decline was generally faster than the reference lifestyle, except for those with recommendation-compliant alcohol, MVPA, and social contact habits. By contrast, cognitive decline was generally similar between all non-smoking lifestyles, regardless of alcohol, physical activity, or social contact habits. Taken together, the results suggest an important role of smoking habits in shaping cognitive ageing.
Source: Bloomberg, M., Muniz-Terrera, G., Brocklebank, L. et al. Healthy lifestyle and cognitive decline in middle-aged and older adults residing in 14 European countries. Nat Commun 15, 5003 (2024). doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-49262-5