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Every row of the evidence table
One row per finding: what was tested, which way the result went, and how the study was built. The answer by area, and where the studies disagree, are on the main page.
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Showing 7 of 382 rows. One row per study per exposure: a study that tested two different things appears twice, once for each.
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| Exposure | Question | Direction | Outcome measured | Design | People | Effect size, as the source reported it | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Birth cohort and calendar period (secular trend in dementia) All modifiable factors together | Prevention |
Benefit
whyDirection is for more recent birth cohort: after controlling for age and period, later-born cohorts were less likely to have dementia in all three regions, more so among women; the point estimates for men in England were not significant. |
Age-specific dementia prevalence by birth cohort in the US, Europe and England | cross-sectional study | 62,437 | point estimate for 1944-1948 vs 1919-1923 cohorts: US, -0.55 [95% CI, -0.77 to -0.34] vs -0.18 [95% CI, -0.25 to -0.10]; Europe, -1.49 [95% CI, -1.72 to -1.27] vs -0.24 [95% CI, -0.35 to -0.13]; and England, -0.48 [95% CI, -0.89 to -0.08] vs -0.23 [95% CI, -0.38 to -0.07] |
JAMA Network Open
2025 ✓ Peer-reviewed PMID 40455442 |
| Birth cohort and calendar period (secular trend in dementia) All modifiable factors together | Prevention |
Benefit
whyDirection is for the later survey year: prevalence fell from 11.6% to 8.8%, with rising education associated with some of the decline despite a worse cardiovascular risk profile. |
Dementia prevalence among US adults 65+, 2000 versus 2012 | cross-sectional study | 21,057 | Dementia prevalence among those 65 years or older decreased from 11.6% (95% CI, 10.7%-12.7%) in 2000 to 8.8% (95% CI, 8.2%-9.4%) (8.6% with age- and sex-standardization) in 2012 (P < .001) |
JAMA Internal Medicine
2017 ✓ Peer-reviewed PMID 27893041 |
| Birth cohort and calendar period (secular trend in dementia) All modifiable factors together | Prevention |
Benefit
whyDirection is for the later-born population: prevalence was 6.5% against the 8.3% expected from the earlier study (odds ratio 0.7), which the authors read as a cohort effect. |
Dementia prevalence at age 65+ in three English areas, CFAS II (2008-11) versus CFAS I (1989-94) | cross-sectional study | 15,431 | Using CFAS I age and sex specific estimates of prevalence in individuals aged 65 years or older, standardised to the 2011 population, 8·3% (884,000) of this population would be expected to have dementia in 2011. However, CFAS II shows that the prevalence is lower (6·5%; 670,000), a decrease of 1·8% (odds ratio for CFAS II vs CFAS I 0·7, 95% CI 0·6-0·9, p=0·003) |
The Lancet
2013 ✓ Peer-reviewed PMID 23871492 |
| Sex differences (biological sex as exposure) All modifiable factors together | Prevention |
Harm
whyDirection is for female sex: women had higher odds of a high neuritic plaque burden than men after adjustment, and were more likely to reach Braak stage V-VI. Black non-carriers and non-carriers of African ancestry were least likely to have high plaque burden, a protection weakened in ε4 carriers. |
Neuritic plaque burden (CERAD score) at autopsy by sex, and its interaction with APOE ε4, race and African ancestry | cross-sectional study | 2,268 | Female individuals had higher plaque burden than male individuals (unadjusted odds ratio [OR], 1.97; 95% CI, 1.67-2.29; P < .001), and this association remained significant in adjusted models for sociodemographic and vascular factors and APOEε4 status (adjusted OR, 1.65; 95% CI, 1.33-2.20; P < .001). APOEε4 carriers of both sexes had an approximately 4-fold greater odds of plaques |
JAMA neurology
2026 ✓ Peer-reviewed PMID 41729539 |
| Blood biomarker test (p-tau217 / amyloid ratio) Care, carers and services | Prevention |
Benefit
whyDirection is for the test's accuracy against the reference standard; an accuracy result, not a health outcome. Stand-alone plasma p-tau217 gave 81% accuracy and 79% PPV; confirming positives with PET or CSF raised both to 91% while cutting PET scans needed to find 100 amyloid-positive people from 536 to 124. Immunoassays matched mass spectrometry on PPV but had lower accuracy. |
Accuracy and positive predictive value for amyloid positivity (CSF or PET) in cognitively unimpaired people, stand-alone and in a two-step workflow | cross-sectional study | 2,916 | As a stand-alone test, plasma p-tau217 achieved a positive predictive value (PPV) of 79% (95% CI, 74-84) and an overall accuracy of 81% (95% CI, 80-82). In a 2-step workflow, the PPV and accuracy significantly increased to 91% (95% CI, 86-95). While this approach required screening of 677 individuals with plasma p-tau217 to identify 100 Aβ-positive individuals, compared to 536 participants when using PET alone, it reduced the need for PET testing to 124 |
JAMA Neurology
2025 ✓ Peer-reviewed PMID 40952756 |
| APOE genotype Genes (not modifiable) | Prevention |
No direction reported
whyA descriptive proteomic mapping: APOE-linked protein changes were present before amyloid pathology and stable across age and disease stage, with ε2 tied to cellular-maintenance and anti-inflammatory pathways and ε4 to cell-cycle, oligodendrocyte-precursor and downstream vascular, immune and proteostatic proteins. It estimates no effect on a clinical outcome. |
Plasma and CSF proteomic signatures of APOE ε4 and ε2 across five cohorts | cross-sectional study | not stated | not established — pubmed abstract reports no numeric effect size. |
Nature Aging
2026 ✓ Peer-reviewed PMID 42141098 |
| Polygenic risk / GWAS loci Genes (not modifiable) | Prevention |
No direction reported
whyA transcriptome-wide association study prioritising nine genes (including BIN1, PTK2B and DMPK) with broadly consistent effects across populations; it reports no effect estimate for any exposure, so no direction is recorded. |
Genes whose blood expression is genetically associated with Alzheimer's disease across three populations | cross-sectional study | 751 | not established — pubmed abstract reports gene counts and a correlation (r2 ≈ 0.34 between two bin1 variants), no effect estimate. |
American Journal of Human Genetics
2026 ✓ Peer-reviewed PMID 42066773 |