A MAJOR international study has revealed that dementia prevention efforts must begin in childhood, not just midlife, as lifelong social hardships were found to significantly affect brain health. The findings show how early adversity leaves lasting biological imprints linked to later dementia risk.
How the Social Exposome Shapes Dementia Risk
Researchers examined the concept of the social exposome, which describes the cumulative impact of social and environmental experiences across life. Factors such as low-quality education, food insecurity, childhood adversity, limited access to healthcare and financial stress can gradually accumulate and lead to cognitive decline and altered brain function decades later. This work highlights how dementia prevention is not only medical but deeply rooted in social conditions.
Study Evidence Across Latin America
The study, published in Nature Communications, collected and validated 319 dimensions of the social exposome among 2,211 participants from six Latin American countries, including both cognitively healthy adults and those with Alzheimer’s disease or frontotemporal dementia. Researchers found that the more adverse the exposome, the greater the cognitive, functional and mental health impairments, alongside brain structure and connectivity changes. In dementia, complex adversities such as food insecurity, financial stress and poor access to healthcare were strongly associated with worse outcomes. Importantly, it was the accumulation of multiple adversities across the lifespan, rather than isolated factors alone, that most strongly predicted dementia risk.
Implications for Policy and Dementia Prevention
These results stress the need to rethink dementia prevention strategies. Traditionally focused on midlife interventions such as controlling hypertension or diabetes, prevention should instead start earlier, targeting children’s nutrition, education and access to healthcare. Reducing early and lifelong social adversity could help build brain health capital and reduce the burden of dementia globally, particularly in regions like Latin America where an estimated 56 percent of dementia cases are linked to modifiable risk factors tied to the social exposome. Researchers argue that precision prevention programmes, tailored to an individual’s social environment, may offer the most effective way forward.
Reference
Migeot J et al. Social exposome and brain health outcomes of dementia across Latin America. Nature Communications. 2025;16(1):8196.
