Get help now — free helplines

You can call any of these for free. You do not need a diagnosis, an appointment, or a crisis to call — questions and plain exhaustion are reasons enough.

  • Alzheimer's Association 24/7 Helpline 800-272-3900 24 hours a day, 365 days a year Free, confidential support and information for people with dementia, caregivers, families and the public. Master's-level clinicians. Also Spanish.
  • 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline 988 24/7 Call or text 988, or chat at 988lifeline.org. For anyone in emotional distress or a mental-health crisis, including caregivers.
  • Alzheimer's Foundation of America (AFA) Helpline 866-232-8484 9:00 am - 9:00 pm ET, seven days a week Licensed social workers providing support, info and referrals. Also text message and web chat. Text: 646-586-5283

In a medical emergency, call 911. More numbers, and what each line does, on the help page.

Find studies

A note on reading research. One study is rarely the final word.

We try to note the size of a study, whether it was in humans or animals, and how early-stage the finding is. If a summary here doesn't make that clear, treat it with extra caution and check the original source.

Hearing Loss, Hearing Aid Use, and Risk of Dementia in Older Adults

✓ Peer-reviewed alzhub usefulness score 70 out of 100. JAMA Otolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery 2024-02-01

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

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

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

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

Trajectories of Depressive Symptoms Before Diagnosis of Dementia: A 28-Year Follow-up Study

✓ 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

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

Is personality associated with dementia risk? A meta-analytic investigation

✓ Peer-reviewed alzhub usefulness score 70 out of 100. Ageing research reviews 2021-02-06

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

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

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

Recurrent depressive symptoms and the incidence of dementia and mild cognitive impairment

✓ Peer-reviewed alzhub usefulness score 70 out of 100. 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

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

Cardiovascular diseases and risk of dementia in the general population

✓ Peer-reviewed alzhub usefulness score 70 out of 100. European Journal of Preventive Cardiology 2025-03-05

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

Association between vaccinations and risk of dementia: a systematic review and meta-analysis

✓ 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

Contribution of Modifiable Midlife and Late-Life Vascular Risk Factors to Incident Dementia

✓ 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

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

Association of Cardiovascular Risk Trajectory With Cognitive Decline and Incident Dementia

✓ 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

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

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

Is physical activity a potential preventive factor for vascular dementia? A systematic review

✓ Peer-reviewed alzhub usefulness score 69 out of 100. Aging & mental health 2010-05-01

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

Trajectories of Depressive Symptoms in Older Adults and Risk of Dementia

✓ 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

↑ Change the filters

Where “Free full text” comes from

Free full text links and the Full text may need a subscription label come from Unpaywall, Europe PMC and OpenAlex records of free copies, checked 10 Oct 2026. A study with neither is unknown, not paywalled.

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.

What this library is — and isn't

This is a large sample of the Alzheimer's literature, not an exhaustive index of it. It holds 30,980 records, built mostly from automated pulls of Europe PMC (65.2% of the library) and OpenAlex (16.4%), plus smaller pulls from PubMed, Crossref and medRxiv. If a study, a drug, or a finding isn't here, that is not evidence it doesn't exist in the literature — it may simply not have been pulled in yet.

1,042 records (3.4% of the library) are not peer-reviewed — 967 of those are preprints posted before any journal review, and the rest are conference abstracts, regulatory notices and reports. Every study card on this page states its status plainly, and the score above is capped for anything that isn't a peer-reviewed article.

See the full, machine-readable breakdown of this library's coverage →

Newest studies, as a dated timeline →    Atom feed    Where this research is being discussed: events