A large Finnish study has found that severe urinary tract infections and bacterial diseases are linked to a higher risk of dementia, independent of other coexisting conditions.
Researchers used nationwide Finnish health registry data covering more than 62,000 people aged 65 or older who were diagnosed with late-onset dementia between 2017 and 2020, along with more than 312,000 matched dementia-free controls.
They examined all hospital-treated diseases recorded during the previous twenty years, and found 29 conditions that were robustly associated with increased dementia risk, of which two - cystitis and bacterial infection of an unspecified site - were infectious diseases.
Overall, nearly half (47%) of dementia cases had at least one of the 29 identified diseases before their diagnosis.
Among the non-infectious diseases, the strongest links with dementia were seen for mental disorders due to brain damage or physical disease, Parkinson's disease, and alcohol-related mental and behavioural disorders.
When they looked at early-onset dementia (diagnosed before age 65), the link between infections and dementia was even stronger, and five types of infection - including pneumonia and dental caries - were associated with higher risk.
"Overall, our findings support the possibility that severe infections increase dementia risk; however, intervention studies are required to establish whether preventing or effectively treating infections yields benefits for dementia prevention," the team wrote - read the study HERE.
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