Welcome  to  public  health  moment from  the  University  of  Minnesota. Middle  aged  individuals  who  smoke, have  high  blood  pressure  or  diabetes, run  a  high  risk  of  being hospitalized  for  dementia  later  in  life. That's  according  to  a  research  study  of  more  than 11,000  people  led  by  Al  Varro  Alonzo, a  University  of  Minnesota  epidemiologist. What  we  found  is  that  people who  smoke,  people  with  diabetes, and  also  people  with  hypertension, had  a  much  higher  risk  of  being hospitalized  with  a  diagnosis  of  dementia. For  example,  we  found  that  people  who smoked  when  they  were  50  during  the  20  years, almost  20  years  of  follow  up, they  had  a  70, 80%  higher  risk  of  being  hospitalized. And  the  figures  were  similar  for  people with  diabetes  and  hypertension. Alonso  adds  that  this  research provides  one  more  reason  why  people  should  quit  smoking and  concentrate  on  improving their  cardiovascular  health  when  you  are  in  your  '40s  and '50s  and  you  think  that  maybe  it's not  important  to  prevent dementia  and  because  you  are  still  young, you  should  remember  that  taking  control  of your  cardiovascular  health  is probably  going  to  reduce  your  risk  of, of  developing  dementia  later  in  life. With  another  public  health  moment,  I'm  John  Finnegan.