The results of this cohort study suggest that hearing loss was associated with increased dementia risk, especially among people not using hearing aids, suggesting that hearing aids might prevent or delay the onset and progression of dementia. 5 key findings →
Design: cohort
Participants: 573,088
Evidence: moderate
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70/100
✓ Peer-reviewed
alzhub usefulness score 70 out of 100.
·
Neurology
·
2022-02-07
Over 10 years of close clinical dementia surveillance in this cohort study, loneliness was associated with increased dementia risk; this tripled in adults whose baseline risk would otherwise be relatively low on the basis of age and genetic risk, representing a majority of the US population. 5 key findings →
Design: cohort study
Participants: 2,308
Evidence: moderate
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70/100
✓ Peer-reviewed
alzhub usefulness score 70 out of 100.
·
JAMA neurology
·
2016-04-01
The patients receiving regular PPI medication (n = 2950; mean [SD] age, 83.8 [5.4] years; 77.9% female) had a significantly increased risk of incident dementia compared with the patients not receiving PPI medication (n = 70,729; mean [SD] age, 83.0 [5.6] years; 73.6% female) (hazard ratio, 1.44 [95% CI, 1.36-1.52]; P Conclusions and relevance The avoidance of PPI medication may prevent the development of dementia. 2 key findings →
Design: cohort study
Participants: 2,950
Evidence: high
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Socioeconomic differences in dementia risk can be partly explained by differences in modifiable health conditions and lifestyle factors. 5 key findings →
Design: longitudinal study
Participants: 6,346
Evidence: moderate
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70/100
✓ Peer-reviewed
alzhub usefulness score 70 out of 100.
·
JAMA psychiatry
·
2017-07-01
Those reporting depressive symptoms in 1985 (mean follow-up, 27 years) did not have significantly increased risk for dementia (hazard ratio [HR], 1.21; 95% CI, 0.95-1.54) in Cox regression adjusted for sociodemographic covariates, health behaviors, and chronic conditions. 5 key findings →
Design: cohort study
Participants: 322
Evidence: moderate
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Existing studies have included a narrow range of infectious diseases, relied on short follow-up periods, and provided little evidence for whether the increased risk is limited to specific dementia subtypes or attributable to specific microbes rather than infection burden. 5 key findings →
Design: cohort study
Participants: 490
Evidence: moderate
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This study provides a quantitative synthesis of the prospective associations between personality traits (neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness, conscientiousness) and the risk of incident Alzheimer's disease and related dementias. 3 key findings →
Design: meta-analysis
Participants: 30,036
Evidence: high
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70/100
✓ Peer-reviewed
alzhub usefulness score 70 out of 100.
·
JAMA network open
·
2022-05-02
Compared with no sensory impairment, DSI was associated with increased risk of all-cause dementia (hazard ratio [HR], 2.60; 95% CI, 1.66-2.06; P Conclusions and relevance In this cohort study, DSI was associated with increased risk of dementia, particularly AD. 5 key findings →
Design: cohort study
Participants: 5,888
Evidence: moderate
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Cancer survivors had a lower risk of Alzheimer's disease than those without cancer, and patients with Alzheimer's disease had a lower risk of incident cancer. 5 key findings →
Design: cohort study
Participants: 1,278
Evidence: moderate
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Stroke is a strong, independent, and potentially modifiable risk factor for all-cause dementia. 2 key findings →
Design: meta-analysis
Evidence: high
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70/100
✓ Peer-reviewed
alzhub usefulness score 70 out of 100.
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Neurology
·
2010-07-01
Our findings support the hypothesis that depression is a risk factor for dementia and suggest that recurrent depression is particularly pernicious. 3 key findings →
Design: longitudinal study
Participants: 1,239
Evidence: moderate
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70/100
✓ Peer-reviewed
alzhub usefulness score 70 out of 100.
·
Neurology
·
2022-07-06
DNA methylation algorithms are increasingly used to estimate biological aging; however, how these proposed measures of whole-organism biological aging relate to aging in the brain is not known. 4 key findings →
Design: longitudinal study
Participants: 649
Evidence: moderate
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Observationally, CVDs were associated with risk of all incident outcomes in meta-analyses, with hazard ratios up to 7.00 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 6.20, 7.92). 5 key findings →
Design: meta-analysis
Participants: 10,373
Evidence: high
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69/100
✓ Peer-reviewed
alzhub usefulness score 69 out of 100.
·
Age and Ageing
·
2025-10-30
Adult vaccinations, particularly against herpes zoster, influenza, pneumococcus and Tdap, are associated with a lower risk of dementia. 5 key findings →
Design: meta-analysis
Participants: 104,031,186
Evidence: moderate
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69/100
✓ Peer-reviewed
alzhub usefulness score 69 out of 100.
·
JAMA Neurology
·
2025-07-01
A total of 7731 participants were included in analysis of risk factors measured at age 45 to 54 years (4494 female [58%]; 2207 Black [29%]; 5524 White [71%]), 12 274 contributed to analysis of risk factors measured at age 55 to 64 years (6698 female [55%]; 2886 Black [24%]; 9388 White [76%]), and 6787 contributed to analysis of risk factors measured at age 65 to 74 years (3764 female [56%], 1375 Black [20%]; 5412 White [80%]). 3 key findings →
Design: cohort
Participants: 12,274
Evidence: moderate
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Over a median follow-up of 10·0 years (IQR 5·1-21·3), high physical activity levels were associated with reduced risks of all-cause dementia (n=146 effect sizes; RR 0·80 [95% CI 0·75-0·86]; I 2 =97·4%), Alzheimer's disease (n=59; 0·79 [0·70-0·90]; I 2 =91·3%), and vascular dementia (n=21; 0·71 [0·58-0·87]; I 2 =77·5%); however, associations varied by domain. 3 key findings →
Design: meta-analysis
Participants: 4,227,297
Evidence: high
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69/100
✓ Peer-reviewed
alzhub usefulness score 69 out of 100.
·
Neurology
·
2022-04-20
The findings of the current study show that the longitudinal, cumulative trajectory of cardiovascular risk is predictive of dementia risk and associated with the emergence of memory decline. 4 key findings →
Design: prospective cohort
Participants: 1,244
Evidence: moderate
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69/100
✓ Peer-reviewed
alzhub usefulness score 69 out of 100.
·
Neurology
·
2023-05-31
Overall, we showed that SDB was associated with MTL atrophy in cognitively asymptomatic older adults engaged in the Alzheimer continuum, which may increase the risk of developing memory impairment over time. 3 key findings →
Design: randomized controlled trial
Participants: 122
Evidence: high
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Among participants in the Framingham Heart Study, the incidence of dementia has declined over the course of three decades. 3 key findings →
Participants: 5,205
Evidence: low
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69/100
✓ Peer-reviewed
alzhub usefulness score 69 out of 100.
·
JAMA
·
2009-08-01
Higher adherence to a Mediterranean diet was associated with slower MMSE cognitive decline but not consistently with other cognitive tests. 5 key findings →
Design: cohort study
Participants: 99
Evidence: moderate
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69/100
✓ Peer-reviewed
alzhub usefulness score 69 out of 100.
·
BMC geriatrics
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2016-10-12
Studies varied widely in size and quality and therefore we must be circumspect in our conclusions. 3 key findings →
Design: systematic review
Participants: 60
Evidence: high
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69/100
✓ Peer-reviewed
alzhub usefulness score 69 out of 100.
·
JAMA neurology
·
2018-09-01
The mean (SD) age was 73.7 (6.0) years, and the mean (SD) follow-up time was 3.7 (1.2) years. 3 key findings →
Design: longitudinal study
Participants: 223
Evidence: moderate
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We conclude that there is evidence supporting the hypothesis that physical activity is likely to prevent the development of VaD, and should be highlighted as part of secondary prevention programmes in people at risk for cerebrovascular disease. 4 key findings →
Design: meta-analysis
Participants: 1,378
Evidence: high
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An increased plasma homocysteine level is a strong, independent risk factor for the development of dementia and Alzheimer's disease. 3 key findings →
Design: cross-sectional
Participants: 1,092
Evidence: low
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69/100
✓ Peer-reviewed
alzhub usefulness score 69 out of 100.
·
JAMA psychiatry
·
2016-05-01
The analytic cohort included 2488 black and white older adults with repeated depressive symptom assessments from baseline to year 5 who were free of dementia throughout that period. 4 key findings →
Design: prospective cohort
Participants: 1,322
Evidence: moderate
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How the 0–100 score works — and why some entries are capped
This is alzhub's own score. It is not an official metric, not an impact factor,
and no journal, publisher or ranking body endorses it. We built it so that a reader who is not a
scientist can tell a landmark trial from a conference abstract without having to already know the
difference. Every point comes from one of 20 components, all of them printed on the study itself,
so you can disagree with our arithmetic rather than having to trust the total.
- Journal tier up to 10 pts
- Journal's citation record up to 4 pts
- Study design up to 12 pts
- Strength of evidence up to 5 pts
- Peer-review validation up to 10 pts
- How recent up to 5 pts
- Sample size up to 4 pts
- Effect reported up to 3 pts
- Studied in people up to 3 pts
- Randomised / blinded up to 2 pts
- Times cited up to 7 pts
- Citations per year up to 5 pts
- Impact for its field and year up to 6 pts
- Cited by studies here up to 6 pts
- Still being cited up to 4 pts
- Senior author's track record up to 4 pts
- Institution's track record up to 3 pts
- Multi-centre collaboration up to 3 pts
- Indexed in PubMed up to 2 pts
- Free to read up to 2 pts
Journals are placed in ordered tiers, never given a numeric impact factor — we
could not verify current impact factors from a source we control, and an invented one would be
worse than none. Tier 1 is the top-tier general journals (NEJM, The Lancet, JAMA, Nature, Science,
Nature Medicine); tier 2 is the leading specialty journals; tier 3 is every other peer-reviewed
journal. A separate part scores how much the journal's own papers are cited, which tells the
tier-3 journals apart.
Two rules we don't bend. First, we never fill in a
missing value: if a record does not state a sample size or a design, that component scores
zero, and if we simply have no data for a part, such as a citation count, that part is left out and
the study is scored on the parts we could check. The study card says which. Second, anything that is not a peer-reviewed
article is capped at 16/100 and carries a warning chip — so a conference abstract or
a company press release can never outrank a peer-reviewed paper, no matter how good it looks.
We rank a rigorous null result — a good trial showing that something does not
work — above an early positive finding. Someone deciding whether to buy a supplement is served by
that, and the rigour is already counted by the design and journal components.
The score is computed from the published data alone and is
reproducible: the same file always yields the same numbers.
See the whole rubric drawn out →
— four charts covering all 30,980 studies: how the scores are spread and where the cap
bites, which of the 20 components the library is strong and weak on, which subjects rest on
stronger evidence, and what kinds of study each subject is actually built from.