At the conference in London researchers presented results from the multicountry LatAm‑FINGERS trial, which enrolled about 1,200 adults aged 60–77 across 12 Latin American jurisdictions. Participants received culturally adapted interventions — personalized dietary guidance, structured physical activity, cognitive training and vascular monitoring — and the study team reported a 0.11‑point difference in standardized cognitive z‑scores between intervention and control arms, described by investigators as a 55% relative improvement in overall cognitive performance at the end of the intervention period.
The LatAm project adapted the original FINGER protocol developed by Dr. Miia Kivipelto and colleagues, a two‑year trial that enrolled about 1,260 participants and reported a smaller z‑score change (0.04 points) but a measurable cognitive benefit in the intervention group. Related work in the United States, the POINTER study, enrolled a more highly educated cohort and observed an even smaller difference (0.029 points), underscoring that baseline participant characteristics influence measurable effect sizes.
Study leaders, including Dr. Lucía Crivelli, said the larger effect in LatAm‑FINGERS reflected both cultural adaptation and recruitment of participants with a higher burden of modifiable risk factors. The trial accommodated regional dietary patterns and environmental conditions for exercise, and it recruited volunteers from Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic and Uruguay, producing a cohort with lower average formal education and higher cardiometabolic risk compared with some prior trials.
Researchers reported limitations alongside the positive findings. The trials measured short‑term changes in cognitive test scores rather than dementia incidence, which requires much longer follow‑up and larger samples; two prior prevention trials that attempted to measure dementia incidence did not observe clear reductions. Dr. Claudia Suemoto reported a sex difference in LatAm results: cognitive benefits were observed among women but not men, a disparity investigators associated with differential engagement in intervention activities. Translating an intensive protocol into scalable public‑health practice will require distilling effective components and improving participation across subgroups.
Public‑health experts and contributors to the Lancet Commission on dementia prevention emphasize addressing modifiable risks such as smoking, inactivity, social isolation and cardiometabolic disease to reduce population burden. Investigators note that emerging blood‑based biomarkers for Alzheimer’s‑related pathology could provide earlier biological signals to evaluate whether lifestyle interventions alter disease processes, potentially shortening the time needed to assess preventive impact in future studies.
