Middle-aged persons who have cardiovascular health risk factors such as diabetes high blood pressure and are also current smokers have a greater chance of suffering from dementia later in life researchers have warned. The findings showed that the chances of dementia increased most strongly with age followed by the presence of APOE4 -- a gene associated with Alzheimer's disease. Diabetes or high blood pressure also called hypertension increased the chances of developing dementia. Importantly diabetes was found to be almost as strong a predictor of dementia as the presence of the APOE4 gene the researchers said. Our results contribute to