PHOENIX: A new five-year, $13 million Kaiser Permanente study will revisit physical exams undertaken from the 1960s through the 1980s to evaluate how risk factors in early and mid-life have affected brain health and dementia risk among a large, ethnically diverse cohort of seniors.
The Kaiser Permanente Northern California Division of Research will partner with the University of California Davis Alzheimer’s Disease Center to undertake state-of-the-art brain imaging and cognitive testing of study participants, with funding from the National Institute on Aging.
“This study is like time travel, allowing us to look at risk and protective factors for cognitive decline throughout one’s life,” said Rachel Whitmer, PhD, principal investigator of the new study and research scientist with the Kaiser Permanente Northern California Division of Research. “We’ll be able to analyze how factors such as midlife vascular health, psychosocial conditions, and early-life growth indicators have influenced brain health and dementia risk among current members of Kaiser Permanente.”
In particular, researchers aim to explore how early-life conditions may play a role in racial and ethnic differences in dementia rates and risk factors for cognitive decline, an area that has not been well studied…