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Published on December 01, 2023
Breakthrough Boston Brain Care Scorecard Could Slash Dementia and Stroke RiskSource: Wikipedia/Whoisjohngalt, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The McCance Center for Brain Health at Massachusetts General Hospital has given us a blueprint to dodge the dementia bullet and keep strokes at bay by hitching our wagons to a nifty Brain Care Score (BCS).

The researchers claim that sticking to a 12-step regimen can shrink the odds of brain troubles. The scorecard runs the gamut, from physical state to lifestyle to socio-emotional. But, while the original BCS could go up to 21, the UK Biobank, where this was tested, tapped out at 19, due to the study's design quirks.

This study, which was published in Frontiers in Neurology, crunched the numbers on nearly 400,000 adults over a span of 12.5 years and noticed something: the higher the score, the slimmer the chance of dementia or stroke. Specifically, those under 50 with a five-point lead on their BCS were a whopping 59 percent less likely to have dementia and 48 percent less likely to have a stroke.

Dr. Jonathan Rosand, co-founder of the McCance Center, laid it out pretty clearly: “We have every reason to believe that improving your BCS over time will substantially reduce your risk of ever having a stroke or developing dementia in the future.”

This research was supported by the U.S. National Institutes of Health and American Heart Association.

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