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Dementia and other neurodegenerative diseases

Dementia affects 1 in 14 people over 65

Dementia is the leading cause of death in UK women

Dementia and other degenerative diseases of the brain and nervous system, such as Parkinson’s disease and motor neuron disease, are common and serious health problems of middle and old age.  These conditions often come on slowly over many years before they are diagnosed, and this can make it difficult to study lifestyle factors which may be linked to their development. For example, people may take more or less exercise, or lose or gain weight, because they are already experiencing early symptoms of disease rather than because of any effect of these factors on disease risk.

A programme of research, funded largely by the Medical Research Council, has taken advantage of the detailed lifestyle information and complete, long-term follow-up available in the large Million Women Study cohort to help answer some outstanding questions about lifestyle and risk of neurodegenerative disease.  

We have shown the importance of long-term follow-up for research on risk factors for dementia. Our analyses have shown that obesity increases the risk of dementia, but we have also shown that neither a lack of physical activity nor poor diet is associated with an increased risk of dementia (Floud et al, 2020). We have also found that participating in cognitive and social activities in middle-age is unlikely to confer any protection against developing dementia in later life (Floud et al, 2021); and that sleep duration is not strongly associated with dementia risk (Wong et al, 2023). See our ‘Big Questions’ for more on our research into the causes of dementia.

The Million Women Study researchers have also investigated risk factors for Parkinson’s disease, such as alcohol intake and found that alcohol is not related to the development of Parkinson’s disease in women (Kim et al, 2020).

We have shown that risk of motor neuron disease was somewhat greater in smokers (as had previously been suggested) and was lower in women who were overweight or obese compared with lean women (Doyle et al, 2012). Many other factors, including hormone use, alcohol drinking and socioeconomic status, were not related to motor neuron disease risk.

Our team

Selected publications

Related research themes

The Cancer Epidemiology Unit actively works to develop methodology for large-scale studies like the Million Women Study and the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC). We focus in particular on epidemiological and statistical methods for three key areas: long-term epidemiological studies; data linkage and the use of e-health data for research; and the development of online questionnaires.
RESEARCH THEMES