Hearing loss & dementia research benefits from funding boost

Alzheimer's Research UK will invest over £2 million in four innovative new projects exploring ways to reduce the risk of dementia, one of which is led by UCL researchers. The announcement, which comes on World Alzheimer's Day (21 September), is the UK's largest charitable investment in dementia risk reduction research. A recent Lancet Commission report, led by Professor Gill Livingston (UCL Psychiatry) and involving other UCL researchers and collaborating institutions, estimated that around 35% of dementia cases could be prevented by eliminating nine risk factors linked to the condition. The review highlighted the broad potential of risk reduction across the population as a whole, but there are very few well-researched prevention programmes that offer concrete strategies to help individuals limit their risk of developing dementia. A project led by Dr Sergi Costafreda Gonzalez (UCL Psychiatry) will receive £608,000 to study the emerging link between dementia risk and hearing loss. There has been comparatively little research into this link compared to factors like exercise and diet, but the Lancet Commission report found that, as hearing loss is so widespread, it may have more of an impact on the overall number of dementia cases than any of the other factors they identified. "In the UK, over two-thirds of people aged over 65 experience hearing loss, but most do not get hearing aid treatment.