A 26-year study of more than 12,000 people has placed a number on one of medicine's oldest intuitions: the choices made in midlife echo forward into the mind's final decades. Researchers at NYU Langone found that avoiding high blood pressure, diabetes, and smoking between the ages of 48 and 68 is associated with nearly 13 additional years of dementia-free life — a finding that reframes middle age not as a plateau, but as a threshold. Yet the study also revealed that this protective window is not equally open to all, with Black adults and men experiencing shorter dementia-free periods than thei
Midlife heart health habits linked to 13 extra dementia-free years
Study found demographic disparities in dementia-free survival, with Black adults experiencing shorter dementia-free periods than white participants despite same risk factors.