Sepsis and pneumonia the infections with strongest links to dementia risk: study

Common infections affect dementia risk more than expected, suggests new evidence, which ranks sepsis, pneumonia and UTIs the most dangerous.

Researchers pooled data from more than four million people across 16 studies and found that being hospitalised with any infection increased the likelihood of developing dementia by 83%.

The effect on vascular dementia risk was considerably higher than for Alzheimer’s disease.

Sepsis carried the highest risk, followed by pneumonia, UTIs and skin and soft-tissue infections based on hazard ratios.

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