Dementia risk more than quadruples among adults with common disorder

A common neurodevelopmental disorder could be linked to dementia risk, a new study suggests.

Research led by the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, involving more than 187,000 adults aged 50 and older, found that ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) was associated with a substantially increased risk of dementia or mild cognitive impairment (MCI).

The observational study looked at electronic health records and genetic information of participants who were enrolled in the U.S.

National Institutes of Health All of Us Research Program.

7 NEW DEMENTIA RISK FACTORS REVEALED — INCLUDING ONE MILLIONS STRUGGLE WITH Cognitive impairment was observed in 6.7% of participants with ADHD versus 3.4% without the disorder — nearly twice the rate.

After researchers adjusted for age, gender and other health conditions, those with ADHD had more than four times the risk.

The findings — which were published Oct.

7 in JAMA Psychiatry — only show an association and cannot determine that ADHD increases dementia risk, the researchers acknowledged.

"This doesn’t prove that ADHD causes dementia, but seeing the same pattern show up independently in medical records and in people’s genes gives us greater confidence that the association is not simply an artifact of how ADHD gets diagnosed," said senior author Tharick A.

Pascoal, associate professor of psychiatry and of neurology at Pitt, in a press release.

"Two different kinds of evidence are pointing in the same direction." 3 THINGS TO AVOID IN MIDDLE AGE COULD MEAN 13 MORE YEARS WITHOUT DEMENTIA, STUDY FINDS Meanwhile, those with the highest genetic susceptibility to ADHD were found to have a 35% greater risk of dementia than those with the lowest susceptibility.

"Analyzing genetic information alongside years of health records allows us to identify patterns that might not be visible in a smaller or more traditional study," said Guilherme Bauer-Negrini, co-first author and postdoctoral associate in biomedical data science at Pitt, in the release.

"With this kind of data, we can start to investigate what may be driving this association and whether any of those factors could be modified to support healthier cognitive aging." Dr.

Elizabeth Landsverk, a geriatric medicine and dementia expert with over 20 years of experience treating patients with Alzheimer’s and cognitive decline , noted that people with ADHD can have more difficulty with organization, which could contribute to the higher risk of cognitive impairment, although neurological differences may also play a role.