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A new study provides perhaps the strongest evidence yet that education can help mitigate long-term dementia risk.

Led by researchers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, the analysis demonstrates that an education reform in the United Kingdom, which raised the minimum school-leaving age by a year, reduced dementia incidence up to 50 years later. Study participants whose genetics placed them at higher risk of developing Alzheimer's disease (AD) and AD-related dementias (ADRD) benefited most from the reform.

The research is published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences .

"These findings reinforce the understanding that dementia risk is determined by factors beyond one's genetic makeup and that changes such as additional schooling can offset inherited vulnerability," said Richard Hodes, director of NIH's National Institute on Aging (NIA).

The link between higher levels of education and…