High blood pressure, diabetes, smoking and obesity in middle age may shrink brain, damage thinking

Reported by The Times of India; "These factors appeared to cause the brain to lose volume, to develop lesions secondary to presumed vascular injury, and also appeared to affect it's ability to plan and make decisions as quickly as 10 years later. A different pattern of association was observed for each of the factors." said study author Charles DiCarli, MD, with the University of California at Davis in Sacramento and a fellow of the American Academy of Neurology.

"Our findings provide evidence that identifying these risk factors early in peope of middle age could be useful in screening prople for at-risk dementa and encouraging prople to make changes to their lifestyle before it's too late."

For more of this informative article go to the times link.