00:02Researchers looked at one million people in Taiwan and found a link between being married
00:07to someone with dementia and developing the condition yourself.
00:11Now, they said this could be down to three overlapping factors.
00:15One, we tend to choose partners that are similar to ourselves, so similar education or socioeconomic
00:21background.
00:22Two, we tend to share habits with our partners, so same dietary or exercise patterns.
00:28And three, caregiving, so if you are caring for a spouse with dementia that comes with
00:34a lot of stress, a lack of sleep and it can come with poor mental health, which are all
00:40risk factors for dementia.
00:43The researchers also found there was a lower risk if you had more children and a higher
00:47income.
00:48They said this could be because you have more resources to pay for caregiving or a larger
00:54family to rely on, but they stress that these are just associations at this stage and not
00:59conclusive.
01:00What do people do to lower their risk?
01:02What can they do?
01:03Yeah, there's actually a lot everyone can do.
01:05So just last week, the World Health Organisation updated its dementia guidelines and they've
01:11established that around half of all dementia cases can be attributed to lifestyle factors
01:16that we can all control.
01:18So there are many, but some include diet, exercise, hearing, vision, air pollution, depression and
01:27harmful alcohol use.
01:29Two of the most important though that experts say are staying socially connected and staying
01:35cognitively challenged.
01:37And these are imperative if we're going to reduce our dementia cases, which are the leading
01:42cause of death for Australians.
01:46Take care, see you.
01:47You
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